The first major international regatta on
the European A-Class Catamaran Circuit has been completed.
The German international regatta was held
from the 4th to 6th May in Wismar, on the Baltic coast in
northern Germany. Myself along with another Englishman, Nigel Lovett who also
sails a Vision, decided to make the 11 hour journey to the event and challenge
for the title with the 53 other entries. We left the UK on the Wednesday and
had 1 day of training and preparation at the event site on the Thursday before
the first race on the Friday.
The practice went well. Conditions on the
water proved a challenge for boat set up as the Brackish water and shifting
breeze meant that the boat needed to be biased towards a flexible, low drag set
up. The vision is a very low drag shape compared to other A-Classes and I
managed to tune the rig to suit the expected conditions just in time on the
Thursday night.
Friday saw all the planned races being held.
My strategy for the whole 9 race series was to be consistently in the top 5 in
each race as the conditions were so unstable a bad race result could easily
happen due to shifting breeze or different pressure lines over the course. I
achieved this goal and this left me in 3rd spot overnight.
Saturday again all races were sailed and I
had a better day than the Friday. Overnight I made some changes to the mast set
up and managed to get the VISION to perform better up wind and the results
reflected this. If I had not been over the start line early in the 3rd
race I would have moved up to 2nd overall.
Sunday dawned and 2 races were planned. I
got a 2nd in the first race race narrowly missing out on 1st
and the second race saw my only race out of the top 5, a 7th. This
was enough to put me 2 points ahead of Thomas Paasch in third and behind Bob
Baier who won the event for the third year in a row.
This event was the first of the season for
me in Europe and I am satisfied with the result. Although it is not a victory,
second place gives me a good platform to build from and it is reassuring that
the developments made to the boat over the winters break has increased the
potential performance.
I must say thank you to
catamaranparts.nl who have produced and
helped me develop the mast and platform of the boat, to Hammer sails who, once
again, gave me the sail to do the job and of course The Marine Travel Company
for their continued support. This regatta was more about tactics and
positioning on the race course however, without speed the result would have not
been possible.
All the best,
Chris
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