United States A-Cat Association (USACA)

Atlantic Coast Champoinship series

Lake Hopatcong Fall A-Class Regatta For many more photos from this weekend click on the link below to go to a Shutterfly.

Lake Hopatcong A- Class Fall Regatta and Atlantic Coast Championship Series

The 2nd Annual Lake Hopatcong Yacht Club Fall A-Class Regatta was held this weekend September 29-30th.

The weekend started with a full and very long day with 15 sailors coming in Thursday night (Sept 27th) or early Friday morning for a full day of Coaching with Lars Guck. Lars started with some of the very basic concepts of boat handling and added some of the latest most up to date theory and knowledge of A-Class Racing. Starting strategies, Gate rounding strategies, and Sail trim and weight distribution were discussed with a very complete question answer session. After 2 hours of Lars demonstrating on his boat and running thru his version of tacks, string pulling, etc.. a break for lunch with Pizza and Sub-sandwiches was enjoyed. Then it was off the water for a series of drills and races.

Lars had all the sailors do repetitive starts on 3 minute count down and mixed in a short course one lap race every once in a while to keep everyone engaged. While the sailors were doing their drills a Video was recording their progress and showed later back in the club for further analysis. The starting line at first was very deep as sailors had a wide range of experience. As the drills progressed the group at the line as the gun went off, was very tight and very competitive, showing proof that practice does work. During the entire time Lars was barking out suggestions to the sailors and providing some limited one on one coaching when indicated. The clinic ended and boats were put away, only to allow a short period of time before the first party was to start. Peter and Nancy Hefele again hosted the Friday night dinner party at their lake front home with great music, food and plenty of cocktails. All guest sailors were shuttled back late in the evening to their respective host homes via boat.

Saturday we woke up to a beautiful sunny cloudless day with a 10-15 knot breeze out of the NW. The rest of the sailors from out of town arrived and we had some breakfast at the club and started 28 sailors on the line for the first race. The conditions were gusty and provided some very challenging windward beats but some fun and exciting down wind runs.

One of the best parts of Saturday was everyone walking around the club lawn looking at all the new boat designs and shapes. Peter Cogan and Ben Hall had their new hulls there, Steve Clarks design was represented by Bill Vinning from CT. John and Ian Lindahl also made the trip from Michigan with their new LR2 hull shape. Fred Smith from Canada was also there with his brand new LR2. All of this new technology sitting side by side with 30 year old CatNip boats. John Lindahl (Michigan boat builder) and Cal Fuller (father of the CatNip, from Lake Hopatcong) spent many hours discussing boat design. But, nothing was more interesting then seeing Ben Hall set up his new Fixed Wing boat and push it off the ramp into the Lake. We also had a Hydrofoil expert snooping around all day too looking to see what the A-Class is up to now and how he could push that technology into his new Hydro foil Cat boats.

Unfortunately we had several causalities right of the bat with two major collisions occurring and sending three boats back to ramp. The 30 year old CatNip had its starboard bow ripped off at the start, amazing enough the helmsmen was able to sail the boat back to the club by keeping the damaged hull out of the water on the starboard tack, and keeping it from sinking. An XJ was speared and repaired via duct tape for the rest of the races. Lars Guck took 1st place in the 3 races Mike Gruber from LHYC, Ian Lindahl from Michigan, and Danny Goritski from LHYC taking turns at second and third.

Saturday night, “Rums of Puerto Rico” sponsored a Caribbean theme party and dinner at the LHYC. Nearly 75 sailors and guests attended the dinner, live DJ music and dancing until late at night. Sailors were again dragged away to their host homes for some well needed rest. Needless to say all the rum was consumed.

Sunday morning a very slow start to the day was felt by all sailors. A beautiful morning was found with bright sunshine and a light breeze out of the east. Everyone was egor to get another set of races in before calling it a weekend. The breeze shifted immediately to the North East then back again to the east. True to lake form, the wind was making it challenging. Only one race was attempted and a 5 boat photo finish was seen by the spectators at the finish line with local Danny Goritski taking the last race by a foot. Ben Hall pull across at third with Lars Guck third.

After breakdown and reloading the boats on the trailers a barbeque was served up with various meats. The award ceremonies were held afterward out on the lawn. During the announcements, it was noted that within the crowd there was significant representation of the A-Class best sailors. Call Fuller, Ben Hall, “Doc” Stern, John Lindahl, Lars Guck, Mike Gruber were all winners, most multiple times, of the North American Championships. As the awards were given out, Lars Guck with his series of bullets took first place in the fall regatta series, Mike Gruber 2nd, Ian Lindahl with the LR2 hulls got 3rd place, Danny Goritski 4th and Jim Godby 5th.

Since this was the last of the Atlantic Coast Championship series, we also handed out the trophies for this 4 event series. The series is based on the four race weekends held at West River in April, Bristol in June, Cayuga in July and Hopatcong in September. Jim Godby was the only sailor going to all four events, with Mark Skeels, Chris Brown and Andrew Burdett going to three of the four. The First Place trophy was captured by Jim Godby, with Lars Guck getting 2nd, Mark Skeels 3rd, Chris Brown 4th and Tony Arends getting 5th.

Now we are all done and it is time to rest. 3 days of good sailing, socializing, and talking about sailing has worn us all down. Can’t wait to do it again next year.



*Must have attended more then one event and was given a total number of sailors at that event plus one if they did not attend.
** To not give benefit to a sailor who did not attend more then 3 races, the throw out was the lowest non-attended race score. If a sailor attended three or more race events the throw out was the highest score.