470 Europeans at Yacht Club Port Bourgas, Bulgaria Day 1: No wind stops play
by International 470 Class 20 May 2018 17:21 NZST
16-24 May 2018
Jess Lavery (GBR) boat prepping - 2018 470 European Championship © Nikos Alevromytis / International 470 Class
Racing at the 470 European Championship was scheduled to kick off on Saturday 19 May at the Yacht Club Port Bourgas, Bulgaria, but fickle breeze kept teams off the race track.
On Saturday's opening race day, the breeze swung, gained and lost pressure – keeping the fleet postponed ashore. A wise decision saw the Race Committee abandon racing for the day, in anticipation of Sunday's more promising forecast.
The fleet is stacked with teams who have the form to win the 470 European Championships, and plenty of young partnerships who have the talent to unseat the rock stars of the class. With no racing on the opening day, the day one jitters willl continue to Sunday, when three races are scheduled for each fleet starting at 1300 hours.
Championship title defences will be in full flow, as both Afrodite Zegers/Anneloes van Veen (NED) in the women and Carl-Fredrik Fock/Marcus Dackhammar (SWE) in the men aim for a repeat show of their 2017 performances.
The 11 race series runs from 19 May-23 May, after which the top ten teams will advance to the podium deciding medal race on Thursday 24 May 2018.
Nations competing are: Austria, Bulgaria, Croatia, Finland, France, Great Britain, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Korea, Malaysia, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden, Turkey, Ukraine and USA.
For more information visit the Championship website.