Soto 40 World Championship - Words from Soto 40 Int'l Class Secretary

by Lucas Ezequiel Vescio on 5 Aug 2014 After the second Soto 40 International Class World Championship, I think it’s important to thank and congratulate the Soto 40 European Association for the effort and the excellent organization of an event that has exceeded our expectations.

The Marina Real Juan Carlos I, a place that held two editions of the America’s Cup, was the perfect framework for celebrating this championship and Valencia’s waters provided us a first-level race area, ideal to complete the ten races of the event.

In addition, in the Worlds we could appreciate the high competition level of all the teams. In fact, during the event the overall positions changed continuously and all the crews arrived at the last day with few points of difference among them, keeping us in suspense until the last minute.

We would like to emphasize that the fleet is pretty equal, the boats sail tight and they reach the marks at almost the same time, positions change constantly and racing is a truly entertaining show.

The Worlds proved that the main factor to achieve a fleet like the one we have nowadays is the absolute equality in the construction of the boats, attained since the construction of the second Soto 40 02 UOM (ex Patagonia), built in 2009, until the last boats built these years.

It’s very important the simplicity of use as well as the strict control of the Class in order to comply with the Rule that establishes that no one can change a single thing of the boat received from the factory. And this is essential, because this way we are avoiding an arms race in the fleet and we focus exclusively in the quality of the crew.

There’s another important feature: any owner can take a plane with his sails to Europe or South America and participate in any championship of both circuits, competing on board boats that are in equal conditions.

We can say that the Soto 40 is the ideal One Design boat in its length due to many factors.

We are now focusing in the Soto 40 South American Tour, a new edition of the South American Circuit with dates in Chile, Uruguay and Brazil. The closing event will take place in Brazil with the 2015 Worlds. Furthermore, we have plans and intentions to organize an event without precedents in 2016: a Coastal Races World Championship in Chiloé (Chile).

We are also growing in a global level. Brazil has added its number #35 boat, property of Eduardo Souza Ramos; Chile is preparing its 2014-2015 season with a summer date that will have awesome social events and Europe, with enthusiasm, has committed itself to participate in the 2015 Worlds with a possibility of incorporating new boats to the fleet.

To resume, after an excellent battle for the title of Soto 40 World Champion we continue working in the Class development, organizing enjoyable races and projecting high level championships in order to prove the excellence of the boats, add new crews and integrate the European and South American fleets.