Star Sailors League Finals - Pride of Norway returns for action

by Alex D'Agosta on 6 Nov 2014 Born in Olso and Viking of stance, Eivind Melleby is both a superb athlete and a great person. Sitting 10th on the Star Sailors League Ranking List, he finished ninth in the first Finals in the Bahamas last year, fourth in the Star at the London Olympics in 2012 and third in the Worlds this year at Malcesine with Bruno Prada. Melleby is married with two children and also a successful businessman.

Since the finish of the Star Sailors League Finals 2013, Eivind has been focusing almost entirely on his career. He has been working hard on the start-up of a mobile marketing business with a company called TargetEveryOne. He says he finds the project immensely exciting and the service was successfully launched last spring with the result that the company’s product is now available in 130 countries worldwide.

Hard work usually means no sailing at all, but luckily Eivind found some time to prepare for and successfully compete in the 2014 Star World Championships in Malcesine. He and Bruno Prada, in fact, made up one of the best SSL crews and took home the bronze medal.

This summer, Eivind also competed in the 2014 ORC International World Championship, which was held between 4th-9th August in Kiel, Germany. He was helming a Norwegian TP52 named 'Wolfpack' skippered by Thomas Nilsson.

As he himself admits, Eivind adores escaping the cold, dark Norwegian winter and testing his excellent form with sailing partner Mark Strube. In fact, the duo are determined to make a big impact in December. 'Last year at the SSL Finals, it was a very nice experience to sail in such nice conditions and with some good competition to race against. Unfortunately, we did not do as good as we'd hoped for as we had some equipment breakages. Overall, it was exciting racing and I look forward to the racing this year.

'Regarding the Worlds, this year it was a new experience to sail with Bruno Prada for the event in Lake Garda. It is a special venue with some tight racing up against the shore line and always close and tough fighting for positions all the time. We did improve a lot during the Championship and we were very close to winning the event. About three seconds away actually.

'So my hope for the SSL final this year is that I can get revenge for some unfortunately close calls that did not go my way. This year I think I am prepared and I will race again this year, like last year, with the excellent Mark Strube. We will give it our best to do well and win the trophy this year. Again the SSL Final will boast a line-up of the very best sailors in the world and I look forward to taking them on and having lots of fun at the event. And Nassau is not just a nice place to sail. It is also a very nice place to escape to when winter sets in back in Star Sailors website