PredictWind A-Class Cat World Championships 2025 at Milford Cruising Club - The practice is over
by Gordon Upton 10 Nov 06:31 GMT
8-16 November 2025
The practising is over at the PredictWind A-Cat Worlds, and the race committees are tuned like fine violins. The wonderful volunteer shore crews are poised like greyhounds in the slips, for it's 'all stations to general quarters!', on Tuesday.
Then the next six days of racing will be full on action, with both Classic fleet and Open fleet doing what they are here for. Finished are the leisurely Chicken Carbonara or steak lunches upstairs in the bar/restaurant of the wonderful Milford Cruising Club, the sitting around on beanbags, or in deckchairs eating delicious pies or exquisitely flavoured plumb ice-cream in the 24-degree tropical sunshine.
Gazing across a sweeping curved sandy beach to the turquoise seas, with their scattering of lush, vegetated islands and the Auckland iconic skyline beyond. Now it's race time!
This weekend saw the two-day practice races. This, as all organisers well know, the term 'Practice' is for them and their organisation, not really the competitors so much, as the sailors are usually pretty well practised at it all. But time on the water can't hurt. Although, the results shouldn't really be taken as a serious demonstration of form.
Some sailors will be pacing themselves, some maybe sandbagging just a little, and some don't even sail them, or use the time finalising settings and modes.
But observing the racing, both fleets had similar conditions each day, a few observations could be drawn. Some sailors hate marginal conditions. But it does force you to think harder, do I do this? can I risk that? should I be in this mode? etc. Others just love it as it allows them to verify their internal calibration system and confirm things. It can also be great, or not great, for their confidence. I got this right, I was going well when, or why won't the thing do such and such?
The sea state was pretty good for both days, with a nice directionally stable NNE wind of 5-9 kts giving a 300mm wave chop, so totally manageable. There had been storms, though, up in the North or Auckland in the previous few days. This led to there being patches of seaweed here and there, just a regular hazard. But this also brought down logs the size of pigs on occasions, and these needed removing by the RIBs as hitting these would wreck your day indeed. Fortunately, we know of no collisions, so the RIB goalkeepers must have been successful.
On the Classic fleet course, all was good and we witnessed a new star rising in on the international A-Cat stage, in the person of Jamie Jochhiem AUS 956. Jamie is a great sailor, with much experience, but only joined the class 2 years ago. Since then, he became Queensland Classic Champ and is a serious challenge to Andy Landenberger. We shall watch this tussle with great interest in the coming week, as this quiet Australian lad - they are available it seems, gave a total masterclass in covering and protecting a lead downwind on several occasions.
Whilst on the Open fleet on Sunday, amidst the backdrop of full on a Peter Jackson epic movie cloudscape, featuring dark thunder clouds hanging over the Auckland skyline, and massive expanding Cumulonimbus clouds further south, Local Hero Dave Shaw NZL 270 was loving it. He looked fast, and looks to be pumped up for this, and surely hopes to better his Weymouth 2019 runner up placing this year, although, his Sunday unexpected fast foiling snap-gybe needs work, as he very nearly put it in whilst leading at the bottom mark. Another fast lad is the Italian Lamberto Cesari ITA 13. La Volpe Pazza he should be known as his magnificent, almost Valentino Rossi style, bottom gate foiling overtake rounding of David Haylock NZL 284 and Nick Gardner NZL283 was something to witness. Video and photo evidence has been thought to be circulated on the Dark Web...
So, now the real screaming starts. Tuesday 12:00 NZT should be the go, and excitement is building in this 55-boat event. Stay tuned, race fans!