GC32 @Marseille 2015: Images by Sander van der Borch



All Images Sander van der Borch / GC32 – Full gallery at GC32 FB

4 Responses

  1. James Travis Romano says:

    Love the G4 and your historic angle.

  2. Chris Thompson says:

    Why do so many multihullers keep on complaining about imaginary events that didn't happen 150 years ago?

    Herreshoff's catamarans were not banned – cats were specifically permitted to race in the NYYC as long as they had accomodation like the other NYYC yachts. In fact, the founder of the NYYC (John C Stevens) had owned a cat before he had a share in the initial America. The NYYC, by the way, did NOT run the Centennial regatta.

    The New York cats from two builders raced just like all other classes of the time did, for some years afterwards. Other cats raced in other cities. They were raced by club commodores and other members of the "establishment", and the predecessor of US Sailing gave the cats favourable treatment in some ways. Herreshoff himself said that they would not take over from monos and that he was satisfied with the way they were treated. He also said many years later that people would no longer be interested in cats.

    The claim that there was special bias against cats back in Herreshoff's day is simply wrong. It seems sad that so many cat sailors seem that they have to feel that they are underdogs. Oh, and anyone who insults a mono by calling it "pompous" has no right to criticise anyone for being biased!

    Can't we just enjoy sailing our cats without complaining and insulting other boats?

  3. H20 says:

    It's completely wrong to say that Herreshoff was "banned for life". Neither he or cats were banned, they were just made to race in a specific class – just as almost every other boat of that time and place was made to race in a specific class. The commodores of several NY yacht clubs owned cats (including the founder of the NYYC itself) and pretending that there was some bias just makes all us cat sailors look paranoid.

    And as for Mischa's remark about the way the owner of the big mono felt when getting past by the G4 – in reality the mono sailors normally just don't care, just like the cat sailors at Texel probably didn't care when they were beaten by the windsurfers and just like the A Class sailors don't care when they are beaten by Moths.

    Can't we stop the snarky comments about other sailors, past and present, and just get on with enjoying our own boats rather than bitching and whining?

  4. H20 says:

    Sorry, it wasn't Mischa's comment about the big mono. But the fact that the author wrote that the mono was 'pompous' just shows how arrogant a small and sad minority in the multi community are.