Nacra 15 Championships at Lake Como
by Iain Philpott 9 Aug 2016 03:22 AEST
24-28 July 2016
The inaugural Nacra Championships 2016 has just taken place in Lake Como Italy. On arrival we witnessed gusts of 35 knots, so it was looking very promising indeed!
The club, Centro Vela Dervio, is located right on the waters edge, looking out we had incredible scenery of mountains surrounding the water. Whether cloudy or sunny every day was a guaranteed 28 degrees plus! Blessed by not just a 13.00hrs launch time, the winds performed as expected and did kick in when they were required to.
The event was full of the Nacra family with teams racing 15s, 16s, 17s, 18s, 20s and full foiler 20's from all countries around Europe and even a team from the USA. The race team had a tough job with the varied wind strengths and huge shifts however all the courses were well laid which meant for some tight racing.
It was a fantastic event, particularly for the 15's as this was also their first international event with some of the best youth sailors from Europe checking out the potential competition for the World Sailing Youth Worlds 2016 in New Zealand. Team GBR performed outstandingly coming home with a podium 1st and 2nd from respectively Jack Butters & James King, Alex Philpott & Jess D'Arcy.
Team GBR RYA Youth Squad Multihull sailors Jack, James, Alex & Jess spoke about the incredible velocity and tactics needed to sail the 15 quickly. "If you take it for granted, are pushing it, and make any degree of a mistake then the 15 is going to bite you in the rear and you will know all about it - you will be swimming! It's an absolutely awesome boat that takes youth sailing to the cutting edge of technology and the future of sailing."
The Nacra Championships are guaranteed to grow and become an annual fixture in the calendar of multihull sailing.