A-Cat Worlds Punta Ala 2024: Final Results
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All images Gordon Upton Photography. Entire galleries from the week at his FB page here
A-Cat Worlds Punta Ala 2024 World Champs Crowned
This Friday the 7th and last race of the 2024 Worlds was completed at Centro Velico Punta Ala, Tuscany, Italy.
A week which started +20kns and big waves, followed by light wind flat conditions races and no sailing days due to much wind & storms. The event ended today with a good breeze, check last sailing pic above by Gordon of our mate Ian Rodger…!
Handling the changing conditions presented during the racing days, two sailors dominated their respective fleets to grab the Foilers & Classic World Titles: Kuba Suroviec & Gustavo Doreste scored 4 bullets each in seven races showing total control over their peers. Kuba sailing a Exploder D3 / Bryt Sails and Doreste Classic D3 & Hammer DS,
Foilers
In the Foilers fleet Darren Bundock got yet another podium. The Tornado, F18 & A-Cat top sailor is still missing the #1 A-Cat but keeps sailing in good shape. He needs to keep pushing as Mischa did in the F18 to finally grab a deserved World Title.
Third overall for Mischa Heemskerk (DNA F1 / Mischa Sails), the former A-Cat Champ didn’t raced with the DN flex rig in the end but he will surely continue to refine it along PJ.
Kuba grabs his second consecutive WorldTitle after Toulon 2023, consolidating his lead among the Flying A-Cat pilots. We would like to see Ashby back to match the new gen like him and Ravi.
Classics
Classics saw the Spanish helm, Gustavo Doreste Blanco winning with flare and big pts gap leaving the other two top podiums place to be defined in the last race between Scotty Anderson (D3/North) & Jacek Noetzel (D3/Bryt) securing their spot over Landy who missed the podium in that last race and finished 4th overall (Scheurer/Landenberger).
Gustavo Doreste has been sailing As for 20yrs now, previously he campaigned Tornado for Spain and contended for the Olympics vs Fernando León (Gold ’92). He is a Dentist, career he studied while sailing. He comes from a family of champions with his brothers Luis and Josele both Olympic medalist. Now Gustavo adds an A-Cat World Title to the Doreste sailing lineage!
(Thanks Bernie Benitez for the additional background).
Punta Ala
Not the best climate for the week at the beautiful Punta Ala venue, but nevertheless 7 races are are more than enough to define an A-Cat Remajor gatta, as the Class usually race only two a day.
Italian Class Assoc, IACA and Centro Velico Punta Ala managed 180 boats present at the starting line, marking an excellent sign of the Class health. Both fleets clearly established now and with the proper parallel courses you can gather the entire A-Cat family together.
Media coverage excellent with plenty due photos from Gordon Upton, Tracking and Results in time. Congrats to the organizers.
Aside the racing prize ceremony the Class recognized the great Piet Saarberg (Mast & A-Cat builder & Class Gral Sec, Legend Ben Hall, Dieter Melcher (who wrote IACA Constiution) and Graham Harbour (Chief measurer)
Great to see Piet Saarberg being recognized had the chance to meet him at Bordeaux 2014 along Andy Scheurer, and learnt to respect their work and history with the A Class. Since then we had good talks with him as he taught me insight details on mast / boat building and design.
PJ Dwarshuis told a nice story about Piet Saarberg who was not present at Punta Ala:
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“I can tell you a good story when I was about 15 years old, we’re talking about 1980. So I was a 15 year old kid and I had an old Hobie cat when I saw Piet at my sailing club in Harderwijk with a few others who sailed an Unicorn and I thought: “Wow that’s something different; it’s bigger, it’s nicer, it’s faster”.
At that time it was far beyond my possibilities to own one but Piet said: “You can build it yourself, I can help you and I have a plan for you and I have an old mast and an old sail”. Finally I literally built it all for 1000 guilders and Piet helped me completely out.
He took me to the World Championships in 1982 in Cesenatico and I was sailing Unicorn and he was already sailing a Bim or something and since then we’re good friends.
He told me a lot about boat building and also influenced me to start my own company.
Piet was a very good designer also. He designed the Pesa A-class catamaran which was quite innovative at the time. It was a big volume, quite fast boat.
Piet is a great guy, he’s okay, he is still sometimes sailing; he is fighting his Alzheimer’s disease, his memory is sometimes failing a little bit but the guys at Hellecat sometimes still need him.
Piet did a lot for the A-class, he was secretary of the IACA for many years and he spent thousands of hours for the A-class, so put your hands together for Piet.”
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Next A-Cat Worlds will be held in New Zealand. And Pensacola is targeted for 2026.
Tracking replays here
Complete Results here
Official web: https://www.aclassworlds.com/
