A-Class Cat European Championships 2025 at Riccione, Italy - Day 3
by Gordon Upton 12 Jun 18:50 BST
9-13 June 2025
Many places changed hands in the 4th and 5th races at the A-Cat Euros in Riccione. Light, minimal conditions continue to delight and frustrate in equal measure on both courses.
You can be high in the fleet at the top mark, feeling really good, then it all falls over on the downwind and you discovered you'd haemorrhaged 15 -20 places by the bottom. This was the story across the courses on Wednesday.
On the Classic course, with their jolly yellow lugger, the Saviolina, the boats were all floating about like ducks. Under starters orders, and away. The course didn't really have a favoured side, at the top mark convergence, Scott Anderson Nikita AUS31 led narrowly from Gustavo Doreste Exploder ESP 72, both went up the left, the third sailor rounding, not far behind, was Chris Batchelor, ISV 15 and on his borrowed Exploder, went up the right side. The wind was 6 kts, so it was fill on low drag mode in both directions. Sitting on or ahead of the front beam, no sudden movements. Smoothness wins in this stuff. The downwind mode for these boats is usually sitting, again, as far forward as possible, to pull the stern out, downhaul off, traveller nearly full out, and, if fitted, the mast over-rotator pulled fully on, in some cases to 110deg. And never let your forestay tell-tails go further forward than the opposing forestay, if they are fitted. And don't move an inch! In this mode, and in those winds, the lead boats could expect some 6-7kts speed.
Downwind the leaders all chose the course left, this at least minimised speed destroying gybes. At the bottom gate, it was the same three sailors, but the light wind experts were starting to become to the fore. Reaching the top again, those Southern German lake sailors were creeping up. Georg Reutter GER2 and Wolfgang Klampfer AUT6 were making their moves. Midway down the last downwind leg, Georg made his move and gybed over to the right, sensing more pressure there. At the bottom, he'd snatched third from Chris and the places remained the same at the top, with Gustavo going well, chased by Scotty. However, Georg was sailing deeper and making his beloved Nikita and his light build turn to his advantage. At the line, he just pipped Scotty by 3 sec. Chris came in a minute later. And further down the fleet, dreams and nightmare were acted out, as sailors battled each other and the conditions, with positions changing for a few right at the line.
Race 5 saw even lighter winds. Class minimum is 5kts, which was recorded by the race committee, so off the went. Again the course showed no favoured side, they were both as bad! But this time the top leaders were 3 different names. Teo Di Batista ITA4 led Michal Warlop BEL 9 and Manuel Vaccari ITA 5. The downwind leg, sailors chose both sides, none really showed better. But at the bottom, Scotty had become second, with Michal in third. Manuel and Gustavo followed in 'hot' pursuit.
But the wind was dropping, and the Race Officer shortened the course. This was done at the bottom gate and the C + S flags flown from the Port gate mark. This meant that the boats had to pass through the gate but then to the finish line. It was a crucial point for a few sailors. Most sailed through the gate as instructed with the flags. However, four boats misread this signal, and proceeded just to the line instead. One of them was Gustavo. This error could well finish his hopes of retaining his European Championship title, if fewer than 4 more races are sailed as he will be forced to take the 44 point penalty for his NSC (Not Correctly Sailed, per rule A5.1) and he has already dropped his UFD penalty from his first race. Chris Batchelor committed the same, error but his placing remains as he drops it as things stand currently.
The current leaders are now Scott Anderson, Chris Batchelor, Teo De Battista, Jacek Noetzel POL1, for whom light airs are kryptonite for him, and Georg Reutter.
Meanwhile over on the Open course, similar horrors played out. The Classics will generally go far better in this bottom end 5-8 kt stuff than the Open boats. Unless you can manage to get foiling, they feel like lead ducks to the sailors, as they watch in frustration the 'chosen ones' hop up and zoom away.
Their Race started cleanly, apart from the seven boats who were playing and practising just a little too far from the committee boat. It was then too late for them to get their time to distance numbers to match, resulting in several forlorn looking sailors squeezing around the committee boat stern for their delayed starts. One such errant schoolboy was Manolo Calavia ESP 11, the current event number two. But they all took it on the chin.
The boats set off for the top in 7-8 kt winds, as on the Classic course, there seemed no favoured side, so minimising manoeuvres was the order of the day. At the top, Dominik Piekert, Scheurer SUI 17 narrowly led Emmanuel Dode, Exploder FRA 2 and Lamberto Cesare, Exploder ITA 13. However, after the spreader mark, the lead two had decided go into a deep mode rather than to sail on a course pretty much at 90 deg to just to try and get enough wind and speed to get foiling. Lamberto, the current leader Kuba Surowiec Exploder POL 41, Abdon Ibanez Exploder ESP 74, Joey Randell Exploder AUS 22 and Micsha Heemskerk DNA F1x NED 7 all chose the latter route. Their decision quickly paid off and their speeds jumped over 10 knots in an instant.
Many of the remainder of the fleet were unable to get into the foiling mode, so just had to tolerate watching the top few lads get smaller. At the bottom mark, the Kuba, Abdon Lamberto show continued the upwind, again was not a foiling leg for them in this wind. Kuba just stretched his lead, and the others could just follow.
The race was just a two lap event, so that from the spreader it was then straight to finish. Kuba led, Lamberto chased, and Abdon followed in a great race for him, a broad grin across his face. Next to arrive in the area was Joey in spectacular style and from leading Mischa who was closing fast. However, the Aussie tried to close him off but fell off the foils thus slowing markedly. Mischa sailed across his stern, gybed around and stole 4th place from him by 9 seconds.
Race 5 for them was a lower wind still. Foiling was only possible for a chosen few. Kuba took the left, Lamberto the right. Again, marginal differences at the top. They rounded with Manolo in the lead after he'd deciding that being at the actual start was possibly the best tactic. Dominik next, Kuba, then Lamberto. It was then that Kuba deployed his special skill. He has trained extensively to see how and at what minimum speed he can foil in. This sailor should be seriously looked at by the SailGP teams, no joke, he is a foil whisperer. At the spreader he got on the foils, and hit 15 kts, when all around were at 5, and he went deeper downwind too. A few other leaders went off searching for foiling pressure, some found it, others not. This was the dice throwing time. Do you opt for low drag downwind or hope you can triple the speed and somehow nurse that speed enough to get you down the course to beat the rest. Lamberto decided to do this but just couldn't find enough holes to join up and as a result, the superfast Italian threw a three rather than a six. It happens to the best of us at times it seems.
Kuba tacked of the far left, but even he wasn't able to get back up, so went into low drag mode, although, his angle to the gate was less, by virtue of where he'd tacked, and he managed to get a knot or so over the rest of the fleet. At the gate, it was Kuba, Manolo and Dominik. The last lap was all low drag for all. At the line it was Kuba then Manolo. And in third was former GER champ Bob Baier Exploder GER 14. He had quietly worked away in the fleet, gradually stealing places here and there. Finally he stole Dominik's third, much to his huge delight.
In the end, a frustrating disappointing day for many, but rather fun for others. The ranking has been quite shaken up, which will always happen at the ends of the envelope in this class.
Thursday promises much of the same.
Results after Day 3: (top three)
Classic
Scott Anderson
Chris Batchelor
Teo Di Battista
Open
Kuba Surowiec
Manuel Calavia
Mischa Heemskerk
Full results can be found here.