29ers on Garda

Nearly 50 teams attend first Eurocup event

Just under 50 29ers descended upon Lake Garda for the long Easter weekend and the first round of the 29er Eurocup. Teams from Denmark, Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Italy and 4 British boats all travelled to what was promising to be one of the most exiting events of the year.

However Lake Garda did not want to play. Many of the teams arrived early to practice and were greeted by a grey fog covering the lake with no wind at all. This continued into the regatta itself and with the forecast not looking promising it could almost have been a no sailing event. Thankfully Sunday dawned with wind - but it was 7am in the morning and it was from the south. The fleet launched only to watch the light breeze fade.

Eventually a northerly settled in so that two races could be held before the wind changed back to the thermal southerly. With a good breeze building the race officer was able to get three more races in before it to faded to a flat calm once again.

The racing was tight and on short courses the start and first beat were the make or break. It was the senior members of the fleet that showed that youth is not all! Helle Orum-Nielson and Simon Jensen from Denmark put together a very consistent series in the trying conditions to take the overall first prize. Dave Hall and Jessica Smith from Great Britain were hot on their heels until a bad last race left them out of the running for first and having to defend second place overall from Henrick Sogaard and Soren Kristenson who eventually finished one point behind Hall and Smith. The top three all shared the race wins apart from the Italian sisters Sara and Anna Postogna with their bright pink spinnaker who won the 4th race and were first all girl team at 6th overall.

The fleet move to on to the next round at Kiel Week in June.

Results
1 DEN-551 ORUM HELLE & JENSEN SIMON
2 GBR-777 HALL DAVID & SMITH JESSICA
3 DEN-370 SOGAARD HENRIK & KRISTENSEN SOREN
4 GER-778 HORSCH CHRISTOPHER & ELLERBROER AGNES
5 GER-1031 FRIEDHOFF BENJAMIN & MUNDING JOHANNA
6 ITA-696 POSTOGNA SARA & POSTOGNA ANNA