A-Cat Australian Nats 2024: Day 1 Results

by Editor · Published January 8, 2024 · Updated January 8, 2024

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All images Gordon Upton Photography. More here. Three races held today for the Classics & Open fleets at Lake Macquire. Adam Beattie leads foilers, followed by Ravi Parent and Darren Bundock, all three with Exploder D3 / Brewin DS. Scotty Anderson dominated Classics with 3 bullets.

More details check Report by Gordon Upton, published by IACA fb:

Results below day 1 wrap-up.

Australian A-Cat Nats 2024, Day 1

“At day one of the Australian A-Cat National Championships, on the waters of South Lake Macquarie Amateur Sailing Club, NSW, the cream of the Australian fleet assembled. 46 boats, over half of the National Fleet, were joined by two US guests. The draw for the Americans, Mike Christiansen, US No.3, and Ravi Parent, 2022 World A-Cat and F-18 Champion, was a chance to compete in the most competitive National fleet in the World. The fleet currently boasts a host of multiple World Champions, Olympic medallists and even an America’s Cup skipper.

Today, the old mantra of ‘You should know, it’s not usually like this here!’ was clearly heard. The ENE wind was there, then it wasn’t. Big holes were to be found and stitched together by the really unlucky. Or a game of sailing snakes and ladders took place.

Race one got underway with little fuss. The A-Cat fleet has been described to me in the past, by one Olympic RO, as easily the most disciplined in the world and recalls are a rarity. The wind was a decent 10 knots, allowing the more capable sailors of the 20 boat Open fleet to get foiling from the off. 6 mins later it was the 27 boat Classic fleet, although tragedy struck one sailor at the 5 min 55 sec mark as his mainsheet clew attachment gave up, tea bagging him in, capsizing his boat to windward. The hapless unnamed International A-Class Measurement chief was left wallowing as he watched the rest sail away.

However, at the top marks, all was not well. The Open fleet upon arrival, suddenly found themselves somewhat becalmed on their downwind leg, and remained so as the Classics arrived at their top marks, which were set some 200m shorter in order to correct for the speed differential of the respective disciplines. At this point a conjoined fleet continued downwind to the bottom marks, and the Classics rather revelled in the fact that for a change, they had the upper hand speedwise due to their less draggy foils and slipperier hull shapes.

At the bottom, most chose the right mark and started their weary way uphill again, with a few dissenting souls loudly claiming the 5 knot class wind minimum had been breached and the race should be cancelled. Half was up the second beat, the wind filled in again, and most got trapezing again. At the finish, it was reigning World Champ, Scotty Anderson, just ahead of Chris Cairns with Bruce Woodward back in third. The Open fleet was led by the reigning National Champion Adam Beattie, with Darren Bundock and Ravi Parent.

Race two was a more traditional affair. Pretty much 10 kts throughout the race. Much foiling and wild thinging kept all sailors happy. This time it was Ravi winning the Open, Adam following and Bundy third. Scotty won again in the Classics, Andrew Landenberger came in second with Bruce in another consistent third.

Race three started out so well too. Off the line, foiling for the Opens or flat out trapezing in the Classics, off the left hand side of the course. This was where the wind had been shown to be best. Adam led Bundy and chased by Ravi all up the far lefthand side. The rest followed, but remained slightly more central. Then the weird thing happened. The leading 5 boats in the Open fleet found some more wind over to the top right of the course and headed there. They all rounded the left hand gate mark (this AUS fleet sail with a gate at both ends of the course, similar to the sail GP courses, and find it gives more tactical scope to use both course sides equally).

The headed downwind again, keeping to the left side, passing all the upcoming boats in both fleets, who suddenly seem to have stopped in a huge hole. The result was that these 5 all come downhill at least 10 mins ahead of the leading boats from the following pack. But eventually the wind returned and both fleets lapped the course as one old fashioned A-Cat fleet. At the finish, again it was Adam, Matt Homan and Stevie Brewin. Classics were another bullet for Scotty, Richard Howells second and Bruce again third.

Full results – https://www.clubops.com.au/DisplayResults/DisplayPublicSeriesResults?Id=1989&Id2=23-24%20Aus%20Champs

All great fun though. Sailing that never gets boring was today’s lesson and more tomorrow”.

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Results after 3 races Open:

Pos	Sail No	Skipper	Club	Nett	R3	R2	R1
1	AUS14	Adam Beattie		4	1	2	1
2	USA76	Ravi Parent	New York Yacht Club	9	3	1	5
3	AUS88	Darren Bundock	TSC	9	2	3	4
4	AUS4	Steven Brewin	Kurnell Cat Club	15	8	4	3
5	AUS1065	Jake Liddell	CYCA	19	6	7	6
6	AUS1087	Stuart Scott	Safety Beach SC	20	5	8	7
7	AUS10	Brad Collett	Lake Cootharaba SC	24	7	5	12
8	AUS 41	Matt Homan	Royal QLD YS	27	4	21 DNF	2
9	USA37	Michael Christensen	Saratosa Sailing Club	32	9	12	11
10	AUS7	Hamish Sinclair	McCrae YC	35	10	9	16
11	AUS22	Joseph Randall	McCrae YC	37	21 DNF	6	10
12	AUS64	Jarrod Spencer	SPASC	37	14	14	9
13	AUS1055	Ron Scherwinski	McCrae YC	39	12	10	17
14	AUS20	David Brewer	Safety Beach S.C	40	21 DNF	11	8
15	AUS44	Simon McKeon	McCrae YC	40	11	15	14
16	AYS57	Paul Raymond	Nedlands Yacht Club	41	15	13	13
17	AUS110	Mark Griffith	rpayc	47	13	16	18
18	AUS100	Simon Nelson	Mannering Park ASC	52	16	17	19
19	AUS15	Brad Wicht		54	21 DNC	18	15
20	AUS16	Ian Hoffman	Speers Point ASC	63	21 DNC	21 DNC	21 DNC

Classics:

Pos	Sail No	Skipper	Club	Nett	R3	R2	R3
1	AUS31	Scott Anderson	Saratoga SC	3	1	1	1
2	AUS90	Bruce Woodward	Hervey Bay SC	9	3	3	3
3	AUS101	Chris Cairns	Saratoga SC	16	2	9	5
4	AUS958	David Mckenzie	Colac YC	16	6	6	4
5	AUS965	Richard Howells	St Leonards YC&MS	20	10	8	2
6	AUS9	John Dowling	Moreton Bay Boat Club	26	7	7	12
7	AUS11	Wayne Mercer	Blairgowrie Yacht Squadron	31	4	13	14
8	AUS99	Mark Capel	Lake Cootharaba SC	31	9	15	7
9	AUS308	Andrew Landenberger	Big River SC	32	17	2	13
10	AUS27	William Michie	RRS&RC	34	13	12	9
11	AUS960	Neil Caldwell	Lake Cootharaba SC	36	16	4	16
12	AUS28	PAUL ADAMS	TANILBA BAY SC	36	5	14	17
13	AUS987	Paul Neeskens	Hervey Bay SC	36	11	10	15
14	AUS49	Matt Johnson	Merricks YC	38	14	5	19
15	AUS936	Dave Richardson	Bendigo YC	41	8	22	11
16	AUS933	Brian Cole	Elwood SC	42	15	21	6
17	AUS913	Jon Goodall	Stawell YC	44	19	17	8
18	AUS1074	Dominic Tanner	Speers Point ASC	47	18	11	18
19	AUS40	Michael Kopp	McCrae YC	50	22	18	10
20	AUS953	David Gahan	Saratoga SC	53	12	20	21
21	AUS939	Stephen Dyble	Port Macdonnell SC	61	20	19	22
22	AUS1011	Richard Nicholson	McCrae YC	63	24	16	23
23	AUS48	Ian Johnson	Merricks YC	67	23	24	20
24	AUS1008	Paul Delaney	Speers Point ASC	70	21	23	26
25	AUS24	Nick Flint	CYC	80	28 DNC	28 DNF	24
26	AUS95	Robert Griffits	Lake Macquarie YC	81	28 DNC	28 DNF	25
27	AUS8	Graeme Harbour	Mc Crae YC	84	28 DNC	28 DNS	28 DNS