Double Razmilovic podium

A report from this weekend's big breeze Etchells Europeans in Cowes

The Etchells 2013 European Championship were held in Cowes at the CCYC over the bank holiday weekend had the Razmilovic brothers split by James Howells in the top three spots. Ante Razmilovic sailing GBR1410 with Stuart Flynn and Chris Larson are the European Champions, with James Howells second and Nils Razmilovic third.

The proposed eight race event was reduced to five races due to the extremes in the weather, Saturday's initial forecast of force 4-5 turned out to be rather optimistic, with a 20 knot breeze gusting to 25 the CCYC race committee took the fleet to the Ryde bank in order to race.

Unfortunately during race 1 the wind increased considerably with gusts of 38 knots, and while Ante Razmilovic was making the best of the conditions with a significant lead, a few wipe outs were happening behind him. Despite the race being well underway the committee was forced to abandon it half way through as the tide and weather conditions caused the marks to start dragging and with no obvious let up in the weather the committee sent the fleet back to harbour.

Sunday, day 2 dawned with 12-15 knots of breeze, ideal Solent racing conditions on the Bramble bank sheltering from the Tide, and CCYC PRO Andrew Millband managed to get 4 championship length windward, leeward races completed, and with four different winners: Jack Wilson, Shaun Frohlich, Robert Elliot and Ante Razmilovic.

Monday, day 3 saw Cowes blanketed in thick fog holding the fleet in port until the sky cleared mid morning, but who would want to be a race officer? The SW wind then died to 3 knots before a gentle SE sea breeze developed to about 6-7 knots, ideal light wind race conditions for Andrew Millband to start Mondays first race, race 5 of the series, and after 2 general recalls the fleet finally started cleanly under a black flag. On arriving at the windward mark the wind suddenly switched off, as the SE sea breeze failed causing another race abandonment. However, 30 minutes later the more traditional Solent SW sea breeze formed with winds varying from 4-8 knots

So race 5 was restarted and Shaun Frohlich made the best job of avoiding the lighter patches of wind that so effected the race course, conditions similar to those that are likely to be experienced in Italy in June at the Etchells World championships, and for 5 legs it looked like Frohlich had the race won, but on the final beat in a true champions style Ante Razmilovic overhauled Shaun Frohlich's Exabyte to not only win the last race but also become the new Etchells European Champion.