A-Cat French Nats 2014: Francois Gabart Champ

All images Charles Marion. Congrats to the French A-Cat Assoc on this 2014 Nats organized by Cercle Nautique La Baule. 53 boats, daily news , images & results. In the current context it is the best way to go, showing the strenght of the Class for those outsiders talking about ‘crisis’ instead of grabbing a boat and go out sailing.

Full Results Here
Press Release in French Here
More pics uploaded at www.a-cat.org

Internal discussions within members are another story. The bottom line is current members continue to participate, at Circolo Vela Arco, the Italian Assoc along some German & Dutch sailors gathered a good fleet of 40 this same weekend. (+info later)

New designs like Askell & D3 are putting more competitive boats alternatives to chose from.
On the newcomers, Argentina will put 5 riders at Bordeaux, and we are all eager to learn and sail the Europeans and bring back feedback for the 12 boat fleet being formed.

This is the A-Class right now, forums discussions are just that. The Class & its members should not pay attention to that meaningless sideshow, assigning weight to forums or even this web, it is a waste of time. Better focus on supporting your local events and promoting the Class as done in a great way in this event.

Francois Gabart won with a good margin over Billy Besson and Jean Le Coq. Gabart raced the updated D3 , Dominik Scheurer finally could put the build process together and it is going to be quite interesting to see Francois at the Europeans on this Gonzalo Redondo design.

Local built & designed Askell provided the mast for Gabart and the complete boat to Billy Besson. More info on the Askell coming next days. Jean Le Coc won 3 races on the Exploder but got some inconsistent +10th relegating him to 3rd overall.