2020 Optimist European Championship at Portorož, Slovenia - Day 2
by International Optimist Dinghy Association (IODA) 22 Oct 2020 10:12 BST
18-25 October 2020
The sun greeted the participants of the Optimist Europeans Championship in Portorož early in the morning already, but the sailors had to wait almost until noon before the shore warmed up enough for the sea breeze to kick in. Although the shifty conditions on the water were demanding again, the RC managed to finish two races for each of the five groups.
The Optimist European Championship continued today with the next qualifying races. Not long after today's first start - for the yellow girls' group - it became clear the left part of the course is the place to be. With each new gust the wind changed direction a bit more to the left, so the girls who decided to sail towards the middle of the bay benefited by arriving to the upwind mark first.
Same happened with the girls' blue fleet, although their start was delayed with two APs - the first one due to the significant wind drop to only 3,5 kts, and the other due to, once again, a huge wind shift just seconds before the starting signal, pushing a big part of the fleet over the line.
After the race committee adjusted the starting line, the yellow boys' and blue boys' third races starts were clear and without issues. Due to a continuous change of wind direction the race committee decided to change the gate position for the boys, and later to move the RC boat altogether before the third start for the girls' groups.
As if the windy game was not exciting enough already, the wind, for a bit of a change, shifted back, to the right. The RC had to set the starting line once again. Soon after the wind finally stabilised, direction-wise, with the speed of 4-7 knots. Despite the efforts for finishing also the fourth race for both girls' groups, the remains of the dying wind shifted again, so the RC decided to call it a day.
Alen Kustic, IODA PRO: "The second day of racing was better than the first one in terms of the number of races. We had better situation on the starting line, we were lucky and efficient and we had basically no one over, no OCSs or UFDs today, no generals, and the kids were respecting the line. The only issue was again the shifty wind, but this is something we expected. We had to fight again for each race, but managed to finish two races for boys and two for girls. Unfortunately we just couldn't start the third race for the girls, since the wind became very unsteady, so we called it a day."
Find out more at 2020europeans.optiworld.org