Earlier this month Canadian Fred Eton won the "Little America's cup".
This event is run in the fastest cats around. Minimal profile, dagger like twin hulls with a wing rig make for an insanely efficient and powerful boat. Boat speeds easily double the wind speed. For example they will do well over 20 knots with 8 knots of breeze. Nothing else matches them.
The C class cats have suddenly getting the notice that there incredible performance deserves due to the recent decision of the current holder of the America's cup, BMW Oracle to run the next event in multi hulls with a wing rig, the same as they ran with in AC 34. Last time Oracle built a massive 90 foot trimaran with a wing rig, and the defender Alingi built a spider thin 90 foot lightweight catamaran with conventional sails. The event wasn't much of a race as the wing rig was so much more powerful that the event was over quickly when Oracle easily won three straight races.
Now the C class sailors are suddenly the only guys who know how to build these type of boats and sail them fast. All the existing AC teams are going to want to put one of these sailors on their team. I hope they make them pay for through the nose for their experience. The class that once was an open group of friendly sailors sharing developments and helping each other go faster is probably going to enter the super secretive world of America's cup design.
There is an excellent show on CNN that covers the C class cat championships. Check out the link below:
http://edition.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/main.sail/Also:
http://www.thestar.com/article/283826
http://littleac.com/WELCOME.html
