Landy wins Europeans

Landy, European Champ

Manolo upwind

Stevie wins race 7 and 9

Arno scores personal best at 9th overall

Sjoerd Hoekstra fully concentrated  on his new DNA

 Roeland on black beauty

Jack Benson 2nd junior

Former F18 sailor Remco Kenbeek on Felix' DNA

 Murray at the first mark

Mischa upwind in superb style

Wonderful sailing at a beautiful location, a great host club and a perfect organisation by The Swiss. Conditions between 10 and 20 knots.

Landy and Brad  (number 3) showed that trapezing downwind makes a difference on Lake Garda. Last year they were already quick downwind in Danmark and this time the results showed it too. The Europeans sailed a bit more conservative and only Manolo, Thilo (best junior)  and Mischa could keep up downwind trapezing.

Chris scored a well earned second, he did not trapeze downwind but by working hard he squeezed all possible speed out of his boat.

Stevie was relatively late in Arco and needed too much time to sort out his rig. Once he was up too pace he was once again the guy to beat. He did win races 7 and 9.

Mischa missed the top 10 by an OCS in race 7 which could have been a second. Mike Drummond completed the top 10 and his son Finn scored a 25th on his debut, which was remarkable as he was one of the lighter guys (72 kgs)

30 DNA's of the 120 produced were present. DNA scored 4 boats in the top 10 and 14 in the top 25. Micky Todd did very well (12th) and Jack, Donald, Bruce, Mischa and Roeland were in the top 20 too.

DNA, Scheurer, Nikita and Vision seem all to be competitive. The general impression was that the DNA was the easiest to sail in the breeze, both upwind and downwind, The Scheurer is easy to keep in the groove upwind, the Nikita seems to have an edge upwind under 12 knots, the Vision is a fast allround boat but according to Chris (and Piet)  less suitable for trapezing downwind (design choice).

Two trends in this regatta; Fat is fast as you had to be quick upwind in the first leg because the rich got richer in this regatta. Trapezing downwind in the relatively flat water of Lake Garda is faster but needs practice as Landy and Brad showed.

The Europeans do  have to practice more as we saw only 4 Europeans in the top 10! The Aussies still rule.

Arno, Mischa and PJ sailed with a new Landenberger Membrane sail which was cut for their ARC mast and especially Arno and Mischa looked very fast upwind. Arno could sail very deep downwind too.

Stevie (Brewin), Mike Drummond (Brewin), Jack Benson (Brewin), Bruce Mahoney (Glaser), Roeland (Landenberger MAXX) and Remco (Landenberger membrane) used an ARC mast as well.

results at :http://www.acateuro2012.ch/dp/sites/default/files/a-class_final.pdf
More pics at: http://www.slidebox.it/CircoloVelaArco/Europeo-Classe-A/23782543_39HDpG#!i=1929136816&k=3wTM4Z6