505 Euro Cup at Fraglia Vela Riva, Lake Garda Italy

The annual international 505 Euro Cup series is becoming more of a world series as more and more countries outside of Europe are attending. Perhaps its the venues, the competition or the success of this iconic and at the same time modern dinghy. Whatever it is the class remains popular around the world.

55 boats turned up in Riva Del Garda for the 3 day event including 7 from Australia a Canadian and 3 Americans. Many for the first time. Lured by the reputation of sailing a great boat in one of the world's great sailing venues. The standard was world class, the scenery, Italian hospitality, food, wine and ice cream were stunning as usual but the generally reliable wind that Riva del Garda is noted for was missing.

The wind at the northern end of Lake Garda typically blows from the north in the mornings, glasses over and then blows in form the south about 2pm. Unfortunately this year cloud activity and rain upset the patterns. Only 3 of the 8 scheduled races were held in challenging conditions.

For race one the wind was still blowing generally form the north despite the 1pm start. Would it drop out and swing to the south or would the clouds dominate. In the end it did a bit of everything. Still the race officer managed to get a start away. Big shifts and pressure differences across the course meant fortunes were made and lost by everyone. In the end the podium finishes all went to the Germans.

The fleet waited around for a while for the wind to stabilise, but was eventually sent ashore to await further instructions. Ultimately the further instructions were to pack up and start the pasta. The 'Sud' wind didn't turn up.

On day two the Sud wind was blowing, but much lighter than usual. Race 2 was held in a decaying southerly. Quirk and Payne from Australia showed their pace leading around every mark until the end when the wind became erratic. On the last fetch to the finish line boats had spinnakers up, spinnakers down and spinnakers up again as the leaders tried to second guess the wind. In the end Quirk and Payne dropped to 4th and once again the Germans dominated the podium finishes except for Moore and Buttner from the US in second.

Like the first day, the fleet waited around all day for more wind but there was no more racing.

A 9 am start was scheduled for the 3rd and last day to take advantage of the morning breeze. A race was started in a 15 knot northerly which decayed to a about 7 knots by the end of the race. Once again Quirk and Payne led all the way, this time managing to finish first without incident. Unfortunately for them, they were deemed to be over on the black flag start and were disqualified leaving the podium finishes as;

Again, despite waiting all day no more racing was possible. The overall results after the three races confirmed the German teams had managed the conditions well.

Competitors and family loved the event despite the disappointing racing. In fact the general mood was one of "Damn, now I will have to come back again!"

Overall Results: