Six boats and wings are ready to fly, on day two of the 2010 Little America's Cup, aka the International C-Class Catamaran Championship. Instead of racing as planned yesterday, internationally accomplished sailors from five countries played show and tell under the tent at New York Yacht Club. A collection of designers, America’s Cup evaluators and multihull pioneers weren’t too upset that a blustery weather system delayed day one.

One of the most prestigious titles in the world of ultra-high performance sailing, the Championship was last raced in 2007, at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club in Toronto. There, Canadian challenger Fred Eaton and crew Magnus Clarke sailed Alpha to a 5-0 victory over the previously undefeated Steve Clark’s Cogito.

Of the four catamaran divisions, the C-Class is governed by a simple set of rules that reward outside-the-box thinking in aero and hydrodynamics to create the lightest, fastest course-racing boats on the planet.

“All wings under the C-Class rule are the same area of 300 square feet but it can be distributed in any fashion,” shares Steve Killing, the designer for Fred Eaton’s C-Class program. They are propelled not by traditional fabric sails, but by elegant wings, rigid but with twist capability.

With two weeks until the early registration deadline of September 1 for the 2010 Rolex Big Boat Series, organizers at St. Francis Yacht Club have announced the inclusion of a new IRC class for light displacement sport boats. In addition, the new official website http://www.rolexbigboatseries.com is now live for the regatta scheduled for September 16-19, and it includes links to the preliminary entry list, schedule of events and a link to the online apparel store.

“We have had many conversations with owners of light displacement sport boats who want to race in Rolex Big Boat Series, but know that the IRC rating won’t benefit them if they are grouped with some of the heavier boats,” said Norman Davant, St. Francis Yacht Club’s regatta chair. “We really want to include this class. They are fast and plane downwind, and it is super fun to see. With San Francisco’s reliable heavy-air conditions we could be in for a great show.”

There is a significant group of boats on the West Coast that fit this profile, such as the J/125, Farr 36, Santa Cruz 37, the new J/111, Schock 40 and several custom racing boats. “None of those boats rate competitive in IRC against the purpose-built IRC boats,” said Davant. “The best racing is always similar boats racing against similar boats regardless of the rating rule.”

(Photo -Trofeo Caja Mediterráneo Región de Murcia - Audi MedCup Circuit © Stefano Gattini_Studio Borlenghi/Audi MedCup)

The first two years that the Audi MedCup Circuit raced off Cartagena witnessed different extremes of Mediterranean sailing conditions.