Team Aschenbrenner wins EUROSAF Match Racing Open Europeans

by Dan Ibsen on 15 Aug 2016 After four days of intense racing the Denmarks Joachim Aschenbrenner, Jeppe Ditlev, Jonas Funk and Kristian Kvid won the EUROSAF Match Racing Open European Championship in Svendborg, Denmark.

The Danish Team won the finals in a close match against the Estonian team with Mati Sepp, Karl Kolk, Janno Hooll and Ago Rebane. After 1-1 and 2-2 the Danish Team got the best start in the last race, and relatively quickly established a substantial lead, which the succeeded to defend the rest of the race in order to claim their first European Championship title.

The Danish and Estonian Team are also the highest ranked skippers at the World Rankings List, respectively nine and 11 at the last list published July 13th.

Only a couple of months ago Team Aschenbrenner won the EUROSAF Match Racing Youth Championship 2016 and the years before they have also won gold and silver in the Match Racing Youth World Championship. During the last year they have also had very good results from World Match Racing Tour events, and in the beginning of 2016 they became fifth in Malaysia. Now the young team have also started sailing M32 and have sailed their first event in the World Match Racing Tour this spring, and they are looking for a sponsor in order to campaign in the exiting M32 catamaran.

Mati Sepp and his crew came to the finals winning 3-0 over Valeiro Galati/Rafaello Perrin/Frederico Pasini/Ettore Botticini from Italy.

Team Aschenbrenner, who won 10 out of 11 races in the Round Robin, had a much harder fight in the semifinals against the French Team Pierre Rhimbault/Clement Pequin/ValentinBellet/Mattis Naud with 6 races, and Team Aschenbrenner had to win four of these in order to win with 3.25 points, as he was penalized for a collision in an incident where the French boat was penalized.

In the petit finale the Italian team won 2-0 over the French team, and Valeiro Galati/Rafaello Perrin/Frederico Pasini/Ettore Botticini took the bronze medals.
The races was conducted just outside the Hotel Christiansminde and a pier and promenade in front of the hotel, where spectators could follow the races with commentators the last two days.

The Championship took place in Svendborg at the Island Funen in Denmark, and was organized by Svendborg Sound Sailing Club and Royal Danish Yacht Club in conjunction. Both clubs have celebrated their 150 year anniversary this year, as the two oldest clubs in Denmark established in 1866, and thereby also among the oldest yacht clubs in Europe.

The European Championship have had strong support from the Svendborg Community/Svendborg Event, Sport Event Fyn and Sport Event Denmark. The lead sponsors of the event are Fynske Bank, AUDI and Hotel Christiansminde.

Royal Danish Yacht Clubs 150 years jubilee regatta program, including this European Match Racing Championship, has been supported by the A.P. Möller and Chastine McKinney Möller Foundation.

Final results:

Skipper Nation Place
J. Aschenbrenner DEN 1
M. Sepp EST 2
V. Galati ITA 3
P. Rhimbault FRA 4
M.Rönnberg FIN 5
A.Luhta FIN 6
M. Trippolt AUT 7
R. Siugzdinis LTU 8
K. Kling SWE 9
N. Mettraux SUI 10
M. Stanczyk POL 11
F. Oehme GER 12