18ft Skiff Mark Foy European Championship on Lake Garda - Day 2
by Elena Giolai 20 Jul 2022 18:25 BST
18-22 July 2022
Sailing on Lake Garda becomes intercontinental again, at the European 18-footer "Mark Foy" regatta sees Australians join the Northern hemisphere teams.
And it was Mark Foy, to whom the regatta is dedicated, the visionary sailing entrepreneur who transformed Australian skiffs into spectacular boats that arrived in Europe much later. If in Sydney Foy had the intuition of having spectators follow the races from the ferries to involve them in the adrenalin-fuelled races of the 18-footers, on the Upper Garda the Ponale road, sheer above the water, offers a natural grandstand to follow the acrobatics of these boats: difficult to tame, but exciting.
It is Australia, the boat's home country, that is laying down the law in the provisional classification of the Mark Foy European Championship, after seven races with the crew of the Lazarus Capital Partners boat in the lead.
First Europeans and second overall were the Germans of Black Knight, while in third place overall was the British Black Dog.
For much of the fleet there was no shortage of capsizes, breakages and retirements due to the particularly challenging conditions on Lake Garda these days.
Racing finishes on Friday 22 July.