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Combined Australian Catamaran Championships - isn't it about time?


CTMD

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I grew up spending many of my summers running around the beach at Hobie Nationals back when they would go for 2 weeks and have 150- 200 boats across the classes, legend has it they were even bigger before then but you had to sail a H14 or 16. Time added brands and new classes and has meant that this is unlikely to be repeated. However, that same period of time has also lead to us now having classes where you can compete evenly with boats built by someone else. Working a couple of years in advance say summer 2013-14 at the earliest wouldn't it be worth trying to bring all the classes and formulas together for one mega regatta. The big numbers should mean value can be had entry fee wise, particularly as it would be very attractive to sponsors and it would also be one hell of a party.

I'd envisage the following "fleets" theory being if you have more than 15 boats (with the exception of formula classes) you get your own start, otherwise you start in a mixed class with trophies being given to winners on VYC and one trophy for every 4 boats in one design.

I'd envisage something like:

Series one: 16'-18 Non spinnaker cats (and similar) individual starts for: H16, Mossie Cat rigged, Taipan Cat rigged others unless they get more than 15 boats have a combined start.

Series two: F18, F16, Tornado, A class (these guys are problematic as their down wind laylines are quite different)

Series three: 18'+ class (hobie 18, 20), Nacra 5.8, Taipan 5.7 etc.

Its rough but you get the basic idea. Is this something people like the idea of or should we all stick to our own bath tubs?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have you been to the Wildcat Regatta at Forster?

100+ cats for a long weekend.

A very big party and big fleets.

Starting sequences are hard. Four divisions is enough. That is basically half an hour for each start sequence- because one division will always break.

You need a really tight team to manage on water and run with either two parallel courses or one course with variation- we run two bottom marks. It's not ideal but the factors are safety( boats crossing), course length and buoy numbers to be moved for wind shifts.

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Sorry thought I'd put that in, series 3 maybe with one less lap than the big boats. Series one is probably the biggest and 50-100 14' cats would be a oad block for the spinnaker cats is series 2.

Slammer, Foster but bigger is kind of my goal here. Starts are helped by running the event over two weeks and keeping each series to similar boats so there isn't a lot of waiting around for boats to finish. The lists were to give a basic idea as to what I was thinking. But would obviously need some tweeking based upon yardstick for example the Taipan 4.9 sloop would race with the H18, Nacra 5.8, Taipan 5.7 etc rather than with the other 16s.

Come to think of it with Hobie, Mossie, Taipan/capricorn all having the Nationals in Victoria in 12/13 and Nacra having theirs QLD. Forster might be a logical place to host the event in 13/14.

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The Mannering Park 14ft Regatta, the weekend after the Oct LWE is becoming the defacto 14ft "World Championship".

Usually the best of the best attend.

It also gives the guys who normally sail the big boats a chance to jump on a 14.

In past years Bundock, Brewin etc have borrowed a 14 and sailed.

There are "spare" boats, particularly Maris, around and people are prepared to lend them.

With separate regattas, it also gets over the problems of having F18s running down the 14 at double their speed and keeps it all safer.

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I don't think people are getting what I mean by a series.

Series 1: 29-1 December/Jan

Series 2: 2-5 Jan

Series 3: 6-9 Jan

Each series has similar boats from different manufactures so you don't get the big speed differences.

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