International Europe Class Open Week 2022 at Douarnenez, Brittany, France
by Lucy Boreham 6 Jul 2022 12:47 BST
International Europe Class Open Week 2022 in Douarnenez, Brittany, France © Simon Joudan / SR Douarnenez
A total of four UK sailors will be making the trip over to Douarnenez, Brittany, France for the World Championship on the 8th-12th July, the first time the UK fleet has been back in almost a decade.
Tim Laws & Lucy Boreham arrived on the 1st July to sail in Open Week and get in some much needed practice.
From the south of the UK, there are plenty of options for ferries with Tim leaving from Plymouth for Roscoff and Lucy from Portsmouth destination St Malo. Steve & Emma making the Newhaven - Dieppe crossing making this an easy international championships to get to.
For Open Week the fleet of 97 boats were divided into 2 flights with each flight selected each day based on the previous days results to ensure that each fleet had the right mix of boats with 8 races scheduled over four days.
The theme of the week was general recalls and then starting under the black flag, which caught some people out each time. One noticeable thing was the sailors lined up very early and it was challenging to find a decent spot on the line and if not on the 1st row in the light breeze it was difficult to find a good lane and make gains.
The wind for the four days was generally light, mostly around 8 knots, with the O flag for free pumping only making an appearance twice. On the water jury boats, meant that in general the fleet mainly respected the rules downwind, with a few boats being penalised if they were caught.
With at least 2 Olympic sailors completing and a lot of depth of talent in the fleet, the racing was close throughout with not much spread between 1st & last, which made the racing intense and fun with lots of opportunities to either gain or lose places!
For some Open week is a chance to qualify for the worlds, for others it was a chance to practice ahead of the main event starting on Friday 8th July.
Winners of Open week were:
- Casper Fink from Denmark
- Anna Livbjerg (and 1st woman) from Denmark
- Oskari Laurila from Finland
The top ten was made up of 4 Spanish, 2 Danish, 2 Finnish, 1 Norwegian and 1 French.
The 6th & 7th July are set aside for measurement and registration - with 140+ boats in total taking part, this process may take some time.
For the worlds, the Men & Women sail as separate fleets, with 80+ for the Men and 60 for the Women.