A-Class USA. Caterwaul Regatta 2021: Bailey White 1st

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Photos by Susanna Russell, more here. US A-Class racing again, and things are getting back to life everywhere. 2022 Worlds will be held a Tampa Bay, check web here: aworlds.com/2022-a-worlds-world-championship/

This weekend the US East fleet sailed at the Caterwaul Regatta, Bailey White won a tight competitive event.

Top ten Results transcript by us from a photo (as you know we try not to publish photos of results.. Try all to get a decent print screen / html page / link or pdf )

PosDivSailHelmTotR1R2R3R4
1Foiling320Baily White142741
2Classic231Rush Bird163265
3Classic165Bob Webbon199154
4Foiling447Matthew Smyth2381113
5Foiling230Bob Hodges27152DNS
6Foiling294Richard Stevens30121332
7Foiling7Mike Krantz3141476
8Classic435John Cramer35612107
9Classic284Barry Stevens3614499
10Classic35Axel Issel3853dnf11

Below report sent by US A-Class Assoc:

Caterwaul Regatta 2021 by Rush Bird

Everyone has seen the results and knows Bob Webbon and Bob Hodges were on fire.
Let me shed some light on a few factoids. I never got a great start on Sunday, and only got a clear air start on the first race. First race was light with weeds, many times clearing weeds from rudders, boards got hung up too, but I raced with my port board only about 8 inches sticking out the bottom. Didn’t get any weeds on that board even sailing to weather. I sailed to the west and made out each leg. Folks were saying, if they had only gone a little further…

Second race same as first except Bob found out about going west, he did a horizon job on the rest of us. I got caught up clearing weeds in a hole, couldn’t get where I wanted to go and was in 5th or 10th place rounding the A mark the second time. Light air, Bailey went east down wind. I thought about it for a while, then went east too, Bailey sailed in front of me going west now, I couldn’t see anymore air over there than where I was headed, so I kept going east. Wait for it…. I got a lucky puff and came in second. 


Now the third race was 8 to 12 and I could really use the port board now. (I think I forgot to mention why the port board was up. I sanded and filled and sanded both boards 3 weeks ago  and tested them in the trunks, no problem, they went in perfectly, put them away! Then last week I was pursuing a small pesky leak in my port dagger board trunk. I found it at the top rear of the trunk, did the usual vacuum cleaner on the hull, dripped a few drops of epoxy in the crack, waited a few minutes, then turned off the vacuum, let it dry, all was well, I thought. One drop must have gotten away from me and dried at the rear outside edge right where the dagger board exits the trunk. (I found it this morning and sanded it out with 220 grit and a putty knife.) )

So after two days of farting around, I never bothered to go sailing or test out my kit, as the Brits say. I didn’t find out until it was 45 minutes to the start and I was sailing off the beach, when I found the port board would not go down. I banged on it and it just got stucker and stucker. I came back to the beach, where Dustin helped me unstick the board. It took both of us to get it out, him on top pulling and me pushing and banging the board, until it finally released. I didn’t know why it had gotten stuck so I sanded the board again for 15 minutes, but ran out of time and sailed for the start line with the board only down the 8 inches.

I got to the starting area as the first flag went up, caught the time on the 4 minute flag and the rest is history.

The third race was good wind, and I sailed well on port tack, but starboard tack I had to foot too much. Bob Webbon and Mike Krantz were clearly killing me to weather. As we turned down wind, I tried the wild thing on starboard, but it was a no go, the boat heeled but did not go forward, so it was back to low and slow on starboard from then on. Wild thing on port tack I was able to gain on Bob, Mike had jibbed off, I think, so I didn’t see him again until we went back to weather. I gained on Bob downwind, and we were fairly close at the finish.
Forth race was a repeat of the third except a little lighter, maybe. Clearly I gained on Bob and Mike on every downwind leg. The Nikita is so fast, as Woody can testify!Bob said after the end of the third race, “You never let up!” Nope, never let up!

Addendum from the foiling division by Bailey:Going to Panama City was awesome for me.  It was my first travel regatta since 2019 and I got to tune with folks a bit on Friday and Saturday before the racing started on Sunday (storms with lightning were too close to get out the full fleet on Saturday).  The RC work was very good with an early start to Sunday and great timing to get two early races in a fading breeze, two races in a seabreeze, and then pork barbeque and awards by mid afternoon.

Mike Christensen has his new boat and looked very quick in practice when he hooked it up foiling upwind.  Matthew Smyth’s converted A2 is probably the prettiest boat from a distance with its awlgrip / awlcraft painted hull, tramp, and rear fairing.  Overall both classic and foiler, the fleet is looking very high quality.
As Rush noted, Hodges had the total package.  We would trade tacks sometimes and each get our fair share of weed but Hodges led more often than not and was clearly the foiling division leader until he and something in the water damaged one of his boards.  He had to retire and miss the last race and still got third.
Among the many great things of the weekend was seeing some many competitors at the top during the races.  Cramer had a great race.  Richard looked awesome on the foils.  While I sat and floated at a small handful of knots in an early race towards the windward mark, Cam passed me to leeward, going upwind.  She was the only one who could fly a hull at the time.  Matthew Smyth took a bullet in a boat that has come such a long way.  The LLSC fleet all got great starts in the first race.  And Rush somehow managed to win with one board mostly up going to weather?!


Take a look at over 300 photos here thanks to Susanna Russell.

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