© Walter Cooper

BOTY-A2

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High winds and big waves presented a significant challenge to the BOTY judges to
test sail the lightweight single-handed A2 catamaran.  Chuck
Allen, the youngest and most agile of our panel, volunteered for this
hazardous duty, which occured at the very upper wind range allowed for
racing by the class.  Chuck, who had never been on an A Cat,
learned fast as he immediately flipped while adjusting the boards, but
was able to quickly right the boat and regain control.  He then
proceeded to put the A2 through her paces for the next 45 minutes,
building confidence as he sorted out what one has to do the stay
upright on a 165-pound beach cat with a 30-foot tall rig, which one
competitor has described as "like trying to sail a potato chip in heavy
air."  Chuck reached his stride when the chase boat could no
longer keep up with his blinding speed, and at the end of his
introduction to the high-tech world of single-handed cat sailing he had
just one comment: "I want one." Fortunately, as a contestant
at the recent A Class North Americans, I was able to earlier evaluate
the A2 and her performance in more detail in lighter winds. 
There, this new craft was not hard to pick out of the many boats on the
beach, with her radically reversed bows that obviously pushed to a new
level a trend that began several years ago with the
German/Australian-inspired "flyer" design.  The bows for this
concept are typically reversed and overly full down low, quickly
tapering upward to a rounded deck profile that continues well aft to
the front beam.  The "flyer" design, which has dominated class
competition in recent years, proved that this strange bow adaptation
helped a boat to keep a bow down attitude when driving to weather; with
the bows piercing through waves rather than reacting to them with
energy-absorbing pitching.  The other advantage is windage
reduction, which is no small thing in this highly competitive class.
But staying on your feet downwind in heavy air has always been the
problem with the A Cat, where the tall, high-aspect rigs can quickly
overpower the bows on the slender 18-foot hulls.  The reversed
bows on the standard flyer proved to be no more hazardous in this
regard than the standard bows of the past and the question was, just
how far can this concept be taken without seriously increasing the
capsize danger.  This question was certainly on a lot of minds as
everyone gave a pre-regatta check to Pete Melvin's new A2 as he
assembled the boat from boxes recently shipped from their California
factory, just a day before racing was to begin in Traverse City, Mich.
After the first three days of all heavy-air races, where gusts into the
high 20s were commonplace, the results were in.  The A2 with Pete
Melvin at the helm was in first place with only one capsize.  Most
other experienced competitors, in a wide range of other designs, also
had their share of capsizes.  Thus, the radical-bowed A2 seemed to
stay on its feet at least as well as other boats in the fleet and also
get to the finish line first. A further Melvin/Morrelli design
change from the norm is a more rounded hull treatment that extends from
the bows flowing through to an oval shaped transom what appears to be a
further attempt to reduce windage.  The girth of the hull between
the beams is noticeably wider, with no distinct chine at this normal
trampoline intersection.  The trampoline is not lashed to the
hull, but is mainly supported by a cable lashed in a slight arc between
the beams, with several additional lashings added between the cable and
hull.  The gap between the hull and trampoline is left open (as
well as on some other boats in the class) providing an easy foothold to
more quickly launch out on the trapeze. Building these boats
down to minimum weight (all-up and ready to sail at 165 pounds) but
still strong enough to take a beating, is no small task.  Trying
to do this on a production basis at an affordable price point is really
difficult.  All-carbon construction has become standard practice
in the class where hulls must weigh in at 40 pounds or less.  The
A2 hulls are unique in that they are built using a new resin infusion
process that is able to consistently produce a lightweight, void-free
carbon laminate.  While various infusion processes have been used
for some time, it has been mostly in larger craft with much thicker
laminates.  The A2 hulls are one of the first lightweight cored
laminates to successfully utilize this process.  Geno Morrelli and
his crew have spent a good deal of time to develop and fine tune the
techniques necessary to make infusion work at this extreme high-tech
level, which should pay off with tough, void-free hulls that hold up
well for many years of hard sailing at a price that class participants
can afford. Both the beams and mast are of autoclave-cured,
carbon-prepreg construction, with the beautifully built and rigged
30-foot Hall Spar coming in at a mere 25 pounds.  The high-aspect
rudders and boards are, of course, all carbon, but feature a unique
foil shape, especially on the boards, with a significant "reverse
hollow" from max quarter chord to the trailing edge.  The
substantial front beam is an oval "D" section that provides adequate
strength and stiffness to eliminated the need for a dolphin striker
support below. The A2 as sailed by Pete Melvin also stood in
contrast to much of the competition in its utter simplicity, with a
basic layout, featuring a minimum of go-fast gadgets and lines to
tend.  The A Class Cat is difficult boat to sail to full
potential, and it could be that many gadgets-obsessed competitors have
spent way too much time tinkering with control schemes and not enough
time out on the water. Certainly Pete Melvin's solid win in a
12 race series at this year North Americans with a quickly assembled,
untuned and simply rigged new A2 design, has given many in the class
much to think about.  The really good news is that for the first
time in many years, an easy-to-sail, well-built and competitive A Class
Cat will be available in this country to anyone who wants to join in
the fun.  This new potential will only add to a strong and growing
class of purist sailors who want to sail the fastest thing available
that one person can control and carry up on a beach. This
convert can say without hesitation, that after over 40 years of sailing
every kind of multihull, the modern A Class Cat is my favorite, if not
just for the pure joy of sailing.