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Day 4 of Europeans in Thun.
It was another early start yesterday (18th August) for the 62 International Dragon teams competing at the 2017 European Championships on Lake Thun, Switzerland. Shortly after the start half of the fleet tacked onto port and headed for the right hand side of the lake, whilst the rest continued towards the left shore. Making full use of the small, but important, wind shifts was GER 1177 “Pow Wow” helmed by Pedro Andrade who was first to round the top mark.
Right behind the “Pow Wow” team was the 2016 European Championship runners up GER 1162 “Desert Holly”, helmed by Stephan Link and UAE 9 helmed by Henrik Witzmann. At the bottom gate Pedro elected to round the left buoy whilst Stephan and Henrik took the right, game on…
By the time Pedro had cleared the spinnakers and tacked back to cover it was too late… Stephan and his team picked up a better breeze on the left and were now in full control of the second upwind leg. With the prospect of squeezing in another race, our Principle Race Officer Bruno Barthlome’ decided to shorten the course at the end of the second beat.
So it was GER 1162 who took the winning gun, followed by UAE 9 helmed by Henrik Witzmann who finished 2nd and GER 1068 Ingo Ehrlicher in 3rd. Pedro and his team were pushed back to 4th place but remain in 2nd place overall.
A second race was started at around 11am which again saw the fleet split left and right. This time it was GER 1140 “Smaug” who made an excellent gain towards the top of the beat to hold a comfortable lead at the windward mark. Unfortunately for Nicola Friesen and her team of Vincie Hoesch & Joost Houweling, the wind died away to nothing during the first downwind so the race had to be abandoned…
Meanwhile GER 1170 “Cameleer” helmed by Markus Brenneke recorded an 8th place in race 3 to still lead overall. Sailing with Olympian Jochen Schumann & Ingo Borowski, Markus has put together a very impressive series so far counting a 2, 1 & 8 so lead on 11 pts. Pedro Andrade has 12 pts and Stephan Link is just behind on 17 pts.
Another early start today (8.30am) will hopefully see the series completed as 4 races are required to validate the Championship… However, we are all hoping that weather will play ball today so that a 5th race may also be sailed which will allow for a discard.. We live in hope!
Higher, Faster, Longer……….. Stavros. (GBR 789).
Thank you again to Elena Razina for these super photo’s.. 🙂