September 4, 2019
Check on Lake Garda
On Tuesday, September 3, at the European Wind Factory – Italian Lake Garda – in the town of Gargnano, under the auspices of the European Sail Federation, the first official championship of the continent in the L30 class – EUROSAF L30 class European championship 2019 started. Elena Otekina reports from the scene:
© Elena Otekina
At the start, 6 teams from 5 countries, including the crew from Ukraine, where L30 yachts are now being produced, went to the start. The regatta is, in fact, a test, because a month later a significant event will take place in Venice – EUROSAF Offshore Mixed Double-handed L30 European Championship. On October 8, a port race will take place in front of Piazza San Marco, and the next day, 8 teams will go to a two-day offshore to Trieste, where they will finish the day before the start of the most massive regatta in the world – Barkolany.
It was important for the creator of the class, silver Olympic medalist Rodion Luke, designer L30 Andrei Justin and EUROSAF president Joseph Pl, to test the new boats that will be included in the special charter fleet: mixed crews will be able to start training for the Olympics-2024 on them. For this purpose, there was no better place than Lake Garda with its unique wind rose.
Despite the fact that due to a severe storm on Monday it was not possible to conduct a training race, the participants were able to effectively practice in the fresh morning north wind Peler right on the day the race began. And the first start of the championship was held after lunch on a moderate, mainly southerly wind of 10-12 knots. In total, in addition to training, I managed to spend three hour races.
The winner of the day was one of two participating German teams – Sharifa Rasmus Tops. The well-played Rasmus crew, which had already covered 3000 miles in two years on its L30, was able to finish first twice, and in the second race of the day, despite the false start, become second, losing the victory to the Belgian team.
The Belgian crew performed on a new Ukrainian-made charter boat and took second place of the day with 3rd, 1st and 2nd finishes. An experienced offshore racer, a three-time participant in the single-transatlantic Mini-Transat race and last year's Route du Rhum in Class40, Belgian Jonas Jerkens, together with the French racer in the Figaro class and in the match race Sophie Fage are preparing for double-handed in the L30 European Championship, starting in October in Venice, and are enthusiastic about the new Olympic offshore regatta.
Third place went to the Hungarian Present Perfect team, and 4th to the Ukrainian crew of Tardex. In addition to the steering Igor Kalinin, the Ukrainian team is driven by the founders and leaders of the L30 manufacturing company. Dnepropetrovsk Otis Tarda is a leader in the polymer market, and a couple of years ago Andrei Timoshenko and Sergei and Oleg Chulakov decided to build a yacht for themselves, but in the end they started producing L30 this year, and now the 9th building is already under construction. In total, 21 boats will be built in 2020 for the main event in the history of the L30 class – the offshore World Sailing World Championship in mixed doubles.
The guys now have no time to sail, but of course they could not miss the opportunity to thoroughly test the yacht in combat conditions and personally listen to the feedback from the riders. According to CEO Andrei Tymoshenko, the crew is very pleased with the first race day. “The boat behaves very steadily, and it is quite fast, we are very satisfied. As well as manufacturers, we realized that there are some things that we would like to improve. So there is something to work on, there is a cool base, we will develop! ”
Today, the 12-mile Coastal Race will first take place, and then a program of three short races is scheduled. The championship will last until September 5th.
182 September 4, 2019 # 9435
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