A-Class Europeans 2018: Glenn Ashby 1st

All photos by Gordon Upton. Left Katrin Brunner. Great work from him on the tough conditions for this regatta. 5 races only could be completed at Warnemunde. Blown out to light wind racing, where Ashby dominated no matter what. Glenn sailed the new F1x with new updated foils.  Second overall and European Title for Manolo Calavia (D3/North) and 3rd overall for  Maciej Zarnowski sailing a 100% polish platform , Exploder D3 and his own Bryt sails.

Not much analysis this time around on the tricky course conditions and few races finished, but worth to mention Sandro Caviezel’s consistency for a 4th overall on a Scheurer G7 2018 and a short mast (8.3mts) equipped with a Landenberger radial by Felix Egner.

Sandro finished 16th the last race, but he was 3rd all the way until a top mast/sail head issue forced him to lose top 3 for that race. So Sandro did good in the high breeze races and also the light stuff, another good sign for the short mast , which I think it can become the future defacto equipment in the A-Class.

Mischa had two bad races to finish 6th overall. We will need to wait for coming 2019 World in Australia to see the real potential of the new F1x foils/platform. Ahsby won with one at Warnemunde, but the guy if literally off the scale for any consistent equipment or devel assesment. The Exploder D3s 2017 version continue to perform taking 2nd & 3rd.

2018 Worlds to be held at Hervey Bay, Australia available here.

Results remain unchaged then with 5 races:
Top ten below, full resutls here

Check complete event details by the usual excellent report by Gordon Upton (featured above with Glenn):
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A-Class Europeans 2018 Report by Gordon Upton .
Manuel Calavia was today crowned the 2019 European ‘A’ Class Champion, without having to sail another race. Glenn Ashby was the Regatta Champion, with 4 bullets and a 3rd.

On a windy, and above all wavy morning, the race was delayed for one hour until 11am as the sea state was above the limits set out in the Championship Rules. 1.5 – 2 m waves were rolling in from the Noreast driven by a brisk 18kt wind, with some 23kts gusts hidden within it. But by 11am, the PRO deemed it suitable to let everyone off the beach. Probably ¾ of the fleet launched, with some of the more cautious sailors, seeing the amount of breakages taking place on a previous day, decided discretion was the better part of valor.

They needn’t of worried, as no sooner than most of the fleet had assembled in the race start area, a good 30 min hard sail away, they were all sent back to the shore again. Questions were asked as to why on earth the officials insisted on strictly sticking to the designated regatta area after most of the other fleets had gone home two days before beats me. Far better to have the race area much closer inshore, where the sea was flatter and the winds less gusty is something that the organizers need to address with all seriousness. We shall reflect more upon this, and other issues, in a later piece.

As the fleet sailed home, past our spectacular spectator/press boat, a beautiful Catana 47 Catamaran, which was offered to us by a keen armchair ‘A’ Cat fan, Detlef Andreovits, president of the German Catamaran Association, who read between the lines of a previous report an jumped to our rescue. Something that we are all grateful for. A few passing boats started to hotdog shamelessly around us, particularly Mischa Heemskerk what has an unnatural ability, for a male, to do the splits on trapeze.

In the end, racing was cancelled as because the Sis said that 3pm was the last start time for the final day. This was a great pity, because, as expected, the sun then shone and a few sailors went out to experience a fantastic sailing period. Think what would have happened if that rule had been altered? They would have got possibly a couple more races in, with the discards that would have brought too, as Saturday was scheduled to be the last day and a spare in case there wasn’t a championship (5 races) Rules rules rules.

Top woman was Katrin Brunner. Junior champ was Robin Maeder. Classic champ was Marek Zebrowski. 3rd Foiling Maciej Zarnowski, 2nd Foiling Manuel Calavia, 1st Foiling Glenn Ashby.

The next major European event is the 2019 Worlds at WPNSA, Weymouth. This place is a flat water foiling paradise and is very rarely unsailable. Fingers crossed!
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