2012 Soling European Championship win to Team Edding

by Matias Collins / Sail-World.com on 16 Jun 2012 2012 Soling European Championship held in Kalovig Sailing Center, Aarhus, Denmark has now concluded.

The whole Argentine squad set a bunker inside the yacht club, they had an important championship before the Soling Europeans, so they had trained together, with Team Edding's skipper Gusto Warburg having intense preparation in the Star class during 2011 (in an attempt to gain an Olympic spot for Argentina).

The nine sailors coming from Argentina had relaxing parties almost every night after the races, they even had a singer who not only was the 'karma' of the team but also delighted all other competitors on many evenings.

The winning team flew over 15 hours picking up their Soling in Austria and then drove another 15 hours, to arrive before the practice race in the rain and cold of the Danish 'summer'. It was a training session and time for final boat adjustments.

The first race started well with a fourth and with their club partner finishing just ahead. The results kept coming, Tam Edding had all finishes in the top ten, and it was the victory in the fourth race, the last of the third day, that took them to the lead, with a margin.

The other competitors were having ups and lows on their way to the podium.

Today it was early start with the sun up.

It was a soft race for Team Edding, NED 33 (Rudy den Outer) their closest menace. A start at the RO boat and keeping NED 33 behind, the team managing to finish eighth more than enough not to have to race. They were winners of the 2012 Soling European championship sponsored by Henry Lloyd and Volvo.

The ninth race was necessary to determine the European Champion, a tight situation amongst the many contenders, reminding many why former ISA president Karl Haist is known as 'wind finder'. He won on GER 308 the first race of the day, together with Martin Zeileis and Patrick Wichmann, then managed to finish fourth in the second which was enough to take a one point advantage over NED 33 - Rudy den Outer, Gavin Lidlow and Ramzi Souli. In third was GER 323 Uwe Steingross, Karsten Eller and Tim Giesecke who kept climbing the overall results the whole week, they were the reigning champions but were to hand over the trophy to their rivals from the south.

SLO1 sailed by Bostjan Antoncic, Gennadi Strakh and Mitja Nevecny sailed well but was not enough to keep the podium third, losing the tie with GER 323 on count back.

The Reloaded trophy for the best Woman in the overall results once more goes to Susanne Kuchta and the team from GER 243, crew Emil Kuchta and Andreas Hamacher.

The Rein Segaar trophy, contested by Germany, Argentina, Denmark, Sweden and Norway, was again won by a German team, this time GER 304 - Thomas Maschkiwitz, Stefan Wenzel and Crhistoph Wossala.

The Classic trophy for boats built before 1980 went to DEN66 - Frank Jensen, Lars Hjorth and Morten Schmidt.

Top three:

1 ARG 37 Gustavo Warburg Rodrigo Ferres Miguel Lacour CNSI
2 GER 308 Karl Haist Martin Zeileis Patrick Wichmann BYC
3 NED 33 Rudy den Outer Gavin Lidlow Ramzi Souli KZC

Full results: here