United States A-Cat Association (USACA)

The list of the approved entrants to the 2007 A-class WC is really impressive, no doubt the best ever with four past A class Champion (Glenn Ashby, Scott Anderson, Pete Melvin and Mitch Booth, who comes back to sail a major A class event after 13 years), six Olympic medalists (Randy Smyth, Jay and Pease Glaser, Charlie Ogletree, Andrew Landenberger and Goran Marstrom), a world known maxi-multihull skipper (Cam Lewis), a 18' skiff WC (Howie Hamlin), the current DN WC (Matt Struble), a prominent yacht designer (Mike Drummond) etc.

Very seldom a sailing event has gathered such a various and qualified attendance.

Equally impressive is the boats' roster which includes the first ever A-cat fitted with a wing sail, (according to me Ben Hall's project is worth at least the same deal of attention paid to Rohan Veal's flying Moth), the radical platform designed by Richard Roake for Ian and John Lindhal, (I read rumours about a new type of mainsail to be tailored for it by Randy Smyth), the evolutionary boat developed by Peter Cogan, the new Swedish state-of-the-art wonder (the Marstrom M5) together with the more or less old Flyer Mk2, Bimare/VMI XJ, Tools...

-- Maurizio Giuggioli