| EUROS REGATTA REPORT |
| From K508 Chris Wright |
| |
All in all it was good week so far as the beach organisation was concerned but pretty hopeless so far as their organisation of the social side was concerned. We all had to go about 10 miles north to the opening ceremony and endure endless speeches in French, followed by nothing substantial to eat.
Our trip out to Isle de Yeu on Tuesday had many people throwing up on the ferry. Dinner there consisted of fishy nibbles on bits of bread, eaten outdoors on a cold evening.
Another couple of nights we (the Brits in Class 5) went to town to a restaurant and had a good meal, though meeting the Dutch and the Germans afterwards would have been good, but they were staying in La Barre de Mont 10 miles north.
In the early part of the week, before the racing started, we were off the beach early because of the tide, so took the opportunity to sit in the sun on the verandah of the caravan and down a bottle of wine or two so that wasn't so bad.
Communications were hopeless. The 9.00am scrutineering was a shambles - we had to wait while they did 60 parakarts so my yacht, one of the first, got done at 12.30. (Got me out of the FISLY meeting though).
Dave Green had some grief over his mast being 1cm over length but it was in fact 1cm under, though it took him a two hour wait to prove the point.
Later in the week Dave and I were taken to task for not having our sails measured but few others had and nobody had commented on the fact that we should have had them done after the yachts were measured.
Later in the day we rushed five miles back to town for a team photo to discover that they'd cancelled it.
When they measured our sails, the day that I got a 3rd place, they re-checked boom heights of the first 5 yachts. They measured Dave's sail before mine and the officious Frenchman was most indignant when Dave's was measured and came out at 5.32m sq. "Not possible," he said, "I'll measure it this time." So they re-measured it. 5.316m sq this time so that shut him up. Mine came out at 5.48m sq, which was a relief, as it's never been properly measured before.
The wind and weather were far better than I'd hoped for. I'd expected that we would get a week of reaching races if the prevailing south westerlies had been there. Instead we got five tacking races out of seven.
The penultimate races were desperately hard work to my mind (and I was not alone in that verdict). With the wind off the land and so very gusty through the dunes I was looking for the finish after about 20 minutes but it was a 45 minute race.
The start was difficult if you were up to windward as you were sheltered by the dunes and at risk of being becalmed. Once you got going it was a case of fighting the yacht. No sooner did you get it sheeted block to block than you were hit by a monster gust and had to let it go again. After a few minutes of that arm muscles started to complain and by the end simply not have any strength left.
For the final race I installed a sandbag to help matters. I'd gone into the last day 2 points adrift of third place, with Dave Green only a point ahead of that. At one point I'd been (briefly) second overall, then third, then one of the French pilots on equal points to me won a race (the one I was 3rd in). I beat him in the last two races to overtake his points total but of course Brice Petit won 2 races so that was that. Never mind, it's better than last year and the best I've had for 4 years in fact.
Chris Wright
|
|
[ t o p ] |
| |
|
MARK LLOYD'S IMAGES
Click on photo for larger image. |
European Class 5 Champion Xavier Faucon from Gravelines, France.
|
Xavier in his Fila sponsored yacht
|
Xavier silhouetted against the sea.
|
A view of a Class 5 start. This year there was a significantly smaller than usual c5 fleet.
|
K916 Dave Green, who finished 3rd overall, is buttoned down and flying.
|
Old man of the c5 fleet Chris "BABs" Wright and Roger Leah side-by-side across the beach.
|
A local fisherman strolls across the beach oblivious to the c5s behind.
|
What they'll do to pass the time on a wind-less day! Xavier Faucon playing "scooters".
|
Another Frenchman Brice Petit also trying his hand at scooting along the beach.
|
|
