News

To All

Please join me in welcoming   Hans Bonn the new owner of Lighting

As a past sailor of the Jet 14 class and a member of LYC he will be a a great addition to the class.

His contact information is as follows:
John R. (“Hans”) Bonn and Andrea Z. (“Andi”) Bonn
24 Lincoln Circle
Swampscott, MA 01907-1610
Telephone:  (781) 842-0792
Facsimile:  (781) 842-0793
Mobile:  (978) 335-6864

Email: john.bonn@comcast.net

We wish Steve Brick all the best in his RETIREMENT from the A Cat fleet…He has been a long time owner of Lotus and the newly built Lighting! I hope he will take the helm again sometime!

Chip

Hello A-Catters,

We had a great annual A-Cat meeting at the Toms River Seaport Society Museum a few weeks ago. I wanted to report what we discussed and changed at the meeting. The updated rules are posted on the website.

1. We changed the maximum wind speed limits units we can race in from knots back to miles per hour. This has the effect that it lowers the wind speeds we will start and race in from 23mph to 20mph.

2. We will ask all sailmakers of A-Cat sails to certify that their sails are made according to the class rules. This has the effect that we do not need to measure sails.
3. We removed the maximum crew weight restriction of 1600lb from the rules.

4. We are still investigating ways to handicap the fleet. Henry Colie will look into GPS tracking system prices and data capabilities and report back on suitability to this end.

5. Two ideas were introduced to help the BBYRA RC to make sure we have two races on those two race days: if lighter winds, have the first race be a shorter course; if e-scows are recalled more than two times, then the a-cats start ahead of them.

6. We will do a weigh-in at deRouville’ the Friday before the Wanamaker race in 2012

Congratulations to Torch for winning the Fleet Captain trophy!

Thank you to Peter Chance for taking such good notes!

Many thanks to Dan for hosting the meeting at the Museum and for the sandwiches and drinks.

Happy Holidays to all and hope to see you for another great A-Cat sailing season in the new year.

Chip

Spyder for Sale

Built 2007-08

Serious inquiries only

Rich Miller

908-910-7479

The Rheingold Mug past winners

1995 Ghost
1996 Mary Ann
1997 Mary Ann
1998 Ghost
1999 Wasp
2000 Vapor
2001 Wasp
2002 Ghost
2003 Witch
2004 Witch
2005 Witch
2006 Ghost
2007 Witch
2008 Torch
2009 Vapor
2010 Ghost
2011 Torch

So we are reminded yet again that we play in a dangerous sport, whether big boats or small, bay or offshore.

And we had two situations during last Saturday’s BBYRA that had the potential to be “tragic accidents”. While the collision between the A-cat Spy and E-scow Gator was obviously potentially quite serious and needs to be addressed, I am almost more concerned by the two crew members who were swept off Spyder at the leeward mark in an unplanned jibe.

Neither crew member was wearing a life preserver and their spray tops made it hard to swim. And both were wearing dark colored spray tops which made it hard to be seen by the other oncoming, hard charging A-cats and E-scows, let alone any rescue craft.

This is not the first time both of these conditions were involved. We need to teach our young sailors better and we need to remind our older sailors that they aren’t immune by virtue of their greater experience.

We play at a potentially dangerous sport and everyone needs to mindful of that fact and pay better attention, before the next by-line is Barnegat Bay.