29er Eurocup at Fraglia Vela Riva, Lake Garda
by Andre Ozanne 4 Nov 2016 15:23 GMT
28-30 October 2016
Hannah Bristow and Emily Covell Ladies Garda win the 29er Eurocup at Lake Garda © Andre Ozanne
With Riva Del Garda being the final event on the 10 country 2016 season there is always hope and dreams that the sailing will be of the Prosecco kind. With the club offering this on tap rather than the inconvenience of popping open a bottle it seemed pretty assured.
With the race management team paying homage to the tap, and the club chef's offerings at the table closest to the bar, you had full confidence that the RM team had their priorities spot on,the first 3 days of the event fitted in perfectly early lunch, cast off, find the previously laid buoy, moor up and let the lunch settle while the Ora woke up. Of course at the end of October the thermal activity is not quite as assured as in the high summer, so race management sometimes have to wing it, not so good for the digestion!
4 days of racing scheduled for this event and final overall series honours to fight for with multiple European nations,90 entries for the Garda event and 246 entries over the series. A boat's best five events to count and with such large distances between venues having a petroleum sponsor would always be a wise choice.
Day 1 started with the Peler and clear skies and autumn sun, teams launched and sailed gently to the race area, course laid Ora arrived 3 qualifying races knocked out and back for a Campari Prosecco Spritzer. Smooth as a well olive oiled clock. Ita 22 won the first race of the day and overnight Pol 2351 lead Ita22 second Den6 third Fin15 fourth and GBR2304 fifth.
Day 2 looked like a repeat performance and the ritual early lunch was not interrupted, cast off and moor up identical to yesterday but hey wait the Peler remained and the RO thought it may stay for enough time to get a race in and so the weather mark was laid and the first flight was in sequence pretty rapidly, some teams were wrong footed having expected a course to be set for the Ora. With a lap completed the wind decided to relent and so a waiting game for the southerly ensued.
Day two standings overnight looked pretty similar with Esp 2170 and Esp 2422 working their way up the standings to mix with the other top boats once the first discard came into play. The ladies in gbr 2379,Pol 10 and Ned 2274 were all very competitive within the fleet with Gbr2379 with a pretty comfy cushion after a healthy second and a string of top ten places in qualifying.
Finals day one and the ritual continued the table closest to the Prosecco tap was laid and the chef put on his finest, while Stefano and his team of Pierro, Guiliano and Ettore sampled the Italian culinary delights all washed down with San Pellegrino!!! Cast off as normal, digest as normal, but as time drew on the wind was not normal. The Camels were lit and drawn on hard and time waltzed on.
In the end two races were squeezed in after a couple of recalls, uniform and blacks were used as the finals had ramped up the ante, the wind died and the RM team were back for Campari Spritzers it was a Saturday after all! Esp 2170 pipped Pol 2351 Ita 22 popped into third and everyone from 1st to 10th still had a chance for the final days racing. After a couple of spritzer the inconvenient decision to start racing at 08.00 was posted and all thoughts of partying away the night vanished as teams trotted back to accommodation to prepare for a 06.15 arrival at the club to launch in time for the first signal. Early birds love it other don't but the phrase about a worm must translate well into Spanish as those guys Pep Costa and Fran Nunez piled on the pressure to themselves by posting a 30 ouch! the Polish team of Mikolaj Staniul and Kajetan Jbalonski must have been thinking about the fat lady singing at that point, the other Spanish team of Albert Gelpi I Cornudella and Alexandre Boquert Wauters stormed in with some hot results. Two races ticked off in the Peler and the RM 's tummies were rumbling so a quick call to the god of the north wind Boreas quickly sorted the issue out, anchor weighed and back on the favourite table for the normal fayre.
Much speculation in the dinghy park on whether the god Notus would be used after lunch with some teams thinking that they had called it right and started de rigging. They neglected to assess that once the RM are fed and watered there is a job to be done and as always done well so as normal the CB cast off. Two classic races on the course in the Ora that once two flights are racing and progressed look similar to a cam belt with a diversion to the right for a water pump more succinctly put by a Procession in Prossecco. If your lunch was not too heavy and you started with accuracy and commitment it was the recipe for success. I guess Pep and Fran may have had a spot of Cava as they pipped the Poles by a point with Albert and Alexandre with one more point took third. With a little jump in points to fourth the Brit boys of Max Clapp and Ross Banham took forth with overall series winner Fin 15 Alexandre Gronblom and Martin Mikkola rounding out in fifth. The British ladies Hannah Bristow and Emily Covell blitzed the ladies title they must have been on the fruit juice I suspect,with 35 points on the Polish 10 team of Aleksandra Melzacka and Maja Micinska with Netherlands 2274 of Ismene Usman and Elise de Rutyer close behind.
Thanks to Fraglia Vela Riva for the warm, welcoming, fun, competitive racing, for many its back to the chilly waters of home for some hard yards, the 2017 season starts off in February at Yacht Club El Balis in Barcelona, I wonder if they have Cava on tap?
Full results can be found here.