Musto Skiff Europeans at Travemunde Week

The 3rd Musto Skiff European Championship was held as a part of Travemunde Week in Germany on July 23rd – 26th. The fleet enjoyed a good week of close competitive race dominated by the Brits in light and shifty conditions and an awesome location. The festival atmosphere was superb with several of the fleet doing bungee jumps and the European Musto Skiff Crazy Golf Championships.

It proved to be a championship in which many different sailors had very good days when they were on the right shifts and sailing up with the fast guys. Several new faces were really competitive on certain days once up with the top bunch.

10 races were sailed in hard and stressful conditions. Gaining the lead was hard, holding it even harder. There were large opportunities to gain and lose massive amounts by picking the correct sides (both upwind and downwind) and avoiding weed patches.

After a 1.5 hour postponement, Race 1 was unfortunately weedy which caused bother to many of the fleet. Matt Toone went hard right on the first beat and led the race by a good margin to the finish with Richard Stenhouse and Graeme Oliver behind.

Race 2 caught many out with the Race Officer changing the starting order. Stenhouse was upside-down at the start signal trying to get weed out of his dagger board slot. However he recovered with some blinding downwind sailing on the perfect shifts to take second. Ian Turnbull, who was on the start at the gun, took the race, with Toone and Kit Stenhouse following up after Stenhouse. Tim Chapman had a good day, showed good speed and rounded in the top few in several of the days races but was unable to hold his slot but got some good finishes. Race 3 was a stressful affair with the wind becoming lighter but Matt Toone set himself up for the better shifts and led from start to finish, with Stenhouse, Turnbull and Oliver following up.

Day 2 dawned light again with another postponement. With Stenhouse now under some pressure and Toone leading overnight, he pulled out the stops to score 4 straight bullets in the next four races over days 2 and 3 with Toone, Kit Stenhouse, Turnbull and Oliver generally sharing the following places. Notable performances from Martin Boatman leading the fleet for a couple of laps and a 4,2, showed the light wind potential of the northern new comer. “Sending It” being the best option.

Day 3 saw a breeze which came and died causing a race abandonment after the first beat Matt Toone did his bit for international relations allowing the Race Officer a sail in his boat while waiting for the wind to settle. Nice to see – he came back a bit damp but sailed well. Oliver and Boatman had a good day but Stenhouse and Toone scored good positions keep them at the top with a good buffer going into the final day. Jamie Stevenson also had a good day scoring a 3rd in the last race.

The evening was dinner on a tall ship, the 300 odd foot long tall ship ‘Passat’ and then the Musto Skiff European crazy Golf championship with notable performances from ‘The Godfarther’ (boat designer Joachim Harprecht) and ex-champion Gabriel Wicke. Scoring well. However, the ever competitive Richard Stenhouse with some good play topped the charts with a round of 48. All good fun.

With positions open and the second discard becoming active, the fleet picked their brains (pickings were thin!) working out the connotations of who had to do what in order to finish where going into the final day.

The final day had three races scheduled which meant that positions in the top 5 were up for grabs. After an awesome 20knot blast out to the start line, the wind turned down a notch. Toone could still win but needed good points to do so. This meant a match race was on the cards. The two sailed with about 5 boat lengths between them all race with Toone in front all whole time. Stenhouse left 2 inches of clearance for Matt Toone at the committee boat end and with Stenhouse pinching like mad and with similar conditions to the previous day, Toone tacked off for a right hand shift which had paid several times the previous day and Stenhouse followed behind. This time the right didn’t pay and Stenhouse had no work to do as both rounded 10th an 11th. The positions were settled. Phil Kennard sailed a good race to take the win (armed with his new wire-to-wire trapeze system christened the ‘nun-chuckas’) with Graeme Oliver just missing out by half a boat length.

With 1st and 2nd now decided, the battle was really on for 3rd to 6th. In the penultimate race (and with the match racing over) Stenhouse and Toone finished 1st and 2nd after good upwind work by last years champion Gabriel Wicke. However he couldn’t match the downwind soaking performance of the others. The chasers, Oliver, Turnbull and Kit Stenhouse scored mediocre positions, leaving things to the last race. Some good sailing by Wicke and Jamie Stevenson filled the top places and allowed Ian Turnbull to score the places he needed to secure third overall. Kit Stenhouse scored a well deserved bullet after sailing a great regatta flat out wiring while the others were parked on the side decks, this gave her a creditable fourth overall behind the chairman Oliver who struggled for a needed good finish in the final race.

Prizes were generously provided by Musto with some superb engraved glassware from Travemunde Week. Thanks go to the race officer, Meno Bulow and his team for organising a superb series in shifty conditions and to the ‘Godfather’ Joachim Harprecht’ and Devoti Sailing for organising the Europeans as a part of Travemunde Week. Great fun was had by all in an awesome atmosphere. This is certainly a venue we would like to re-visit and would have been even better with a lot more breeze. The Skiff are now looking forward to their nationals at Whistable (end August) with 25-30 boats expected. Then on to the World cup in Garda in October with 25 Brits already booked and a good fleet of Europeans expected, we could see 40 to 50 boats.

Overall Results: