Easter regatta

The Magic Marine Easter Optimist Regatta 2006 took place over the weekend at Braassemermeer YC

During the Easter weekend of 2006 (14-17 April) the Yacht club Braassemermeer and the OCN (Optimist Club Nederland) organised the 21st International Easter Optimist Regatta. This year 267 young sailors from 14 countries competed fiercely to win this prestigious event. Even competitors from the United States of America, Malta and Estland were there to race.

On friday the fleet was split up in six groups competing amongst each other. It was cloudy with some sunny spells and winds from Westerly directions, 10 to 15 knots made it a nice race day. The first race of the event started at 14:00 hours with some general recalls, after which the fleet got on its way for their two rounds race, which took about one and a half hours. First three places in all fleets were taken by Norway, Sweden and Great Britain.

Saturday saw the second race day of the Magic Marine International Easter Optimist Regatta and had three races scheduled. The first race started at 10:00 with winds from ESE at around 15 knots. The fleet behaved perfectly well, so there were no disqualifications because of the black flag rule. Racing took about an hour per race with the second one starting right after the finish of the first one. During the second race again there were no protests, so the international jury had an easy day. After a short lunch break ashore, the fleet went out for the third race of the day, while temperatures went down a little when the sun left. Four races in total saw the Scandinavians play a dominating role in the results. In the end the young sailors had a nice day of racing with a good meal on the yacht club afterwards.

Sunday was another beautiful day for racing. After some rain in the morning, the sun came and with winds from NW, about 10-15 knots it was another perfect day for racing. The first race took one and a half hour and afterwards all competitors went ashore for lunch. The second race had two laps and started at 13:30 in the same conditions. After six races the Swedish sailors are doing a good job, with five boats in the top seven, but in first place it was Phil Sparks from Great Britain, leading the Gold fleet for Monday's two final races.

The last day of the Magic Marine Easter Regatta had the two final races of the event scheduled. The first one had one general recall for the Gold fleet but many BFD's for the Silver and Bronze fleet. There was fierce competition in all fleets in perfect sailing conditions with sunny skies and 15 knots of wind speed. The second race of the day made clear who is the winner of this years Magic Marine Int. Easter Optimist Regatta: Hermann Tomasgaard sailing for Sweden, with Philip Sparks (GBR) on second and Hampus Appelgren (SWE) on third.

Results:

Pos	Helm	Sail Number	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	Tot
1	Tomasgaard Hermann	SWE 4105	1	1	5	7	2	1	12	-23	29,0
2	Phil Sparks	GBR 5556	2	1	25	3	1	1	1	(dnf)	34,0
3	Appelgren Hampus	SWE 4017	3	13	16	5	1	3	-68	1	42,0
4	Strömbäck Carl	SWE 4115	-16	13	10	11	4	5	15	4	62,0
5	Lundqvist Jacob	SWE 4139	13	1	7	3	7	6	-51	27	64,0