IODA European Team Racing Championship

by IODA - optiworld.org on 31 Aug 2008 The first ever IODA European Team Racing Championship concluded on Saturday on Lake Ledro, Italy.

Team Racing is included within the Worlds and other continental championships but in 2007 the IODA decided that, given the comparatively low travel costs within Europe, it was feasible to initiate a separate European TR championship. Teams were composed of sailors who had participated in the IODA European (fleet) championship and were seeded on those results of that event.

To establish the event on a sound footing IODA sought the help of a number of experts. The venue, the beautiful Alpine Lake Ledro, has eight years experience of organising the Ledro Cup for national club champions (as well as a Grade 1 Women's MR event), and the PRO Ion Echave IJ, IRO (ESP) led a race organisation drawn from those events. Chris Atkins IU (GBR), chairman of the ISAF Team Racing Committee, was invited to advise on Sailing Instructions and format and headed a team of seven IUs. Peter Barclay, president of IODA and a great advocate of TR, travelled all the way from Peru to assess the various organisational possibilities.

Entry, accommodation, meals and charter were all free. The A.V. Lago di Ledro club owns 40 Optimists sponsored by the local communi and Cassa Rurale bank and major sponsorship for the event itself came from the Trentino provincial government, SLAM and DIY giant Leroy Merlin.

Following two round robins, the second split into gold and silver fleets, Poland, Italy, Great Britain and Norway qualified for the semi-finals. Poland and Italy progressed to the finals where an exciting finish saw Italy finally run out victors 2-1 over the Poles. Norway took bronze 2-0.

But the true winners were the young sailors. Norwegian national coach Bård Birkeland commented:

'This is a great new regatta. Lots of races - at the Worlds you might only get two or three - beautiful place, very good umpires, nice people and all at almost no cost. I will definitely recommend it to my fellow coaches.'

Entry was limited to 16 teams and as it turned out only 12 teams entered, the main reason being that a number of countries ( e.g. AUT, CZE, IRL, SUI) had already allocated the dates to their national championships.

2009 dates are 25-28 August.

http://www.optiworld.org/ioda-news.html

Event website: http://www.teamlab.ch/sail/ioda2008/Default.htm