Swiss J/70 Sailing League - Round 2 at Romanshorn
by J/Boats 14 Jun 2018 00:29 AEST
2-3 June 2018
Swiss Sailing Promotion League 2/2018 Romanshorn © Swiss Sailing League
The second round of the Swiss Sailing Promotion League took place from June 2nd to 3rd off Romanshorn. The event brought together sailing clubs from all four corners of Switzerland. In fact, the newly launched "third" sailing league also created more ties among the sailors from across the country. The teams come from Lake Maggiore, Lago di Lugano, Lake Geneva, Lake Neuchâtel, Lake Lucerne, Lake Hallwil, Lake Zurich, Lake Constance and from Basel, where the Basel sailing club trains on the Rhine River. In total, Switzerland now has three levels of participation in their leagues for 12 sailing clubs each, bringing the total participation to 36 clubs in the Swiss Alps!
For this particular event, by far the most popular crew was the local junior team from the YC Romanshorn. Junior captain and skipper Lara Heuberger was sailing with the youngest crew at the regatta- Rashad Bisseger (16 yrs old), Julian Egli (16 yrs old), Finn Josat (14 yrs old) and Leonie Fink (15 yrs old). The YC Romanshorn deliberately renounced its starting position in the highest Challenge League to give the youngsters a chance to build their team and encourage youth participation in the club. The season's goal is to participate in the Swiss Sailing League Youth Cup in the autumn at the National Youth Sport Center Tenero on Lake Maggiore.
An important feature for all Swiss J/70 Sailing League regattas has been the YC Romanshorn innovation - the RoboBojen (RoboBuoy). These buoys move independently and hold their position by means of a satellite navigation (GPS) based control; an Android-base app on a mobile phone controls the entire race course. This makes course planning quicker and more accurate, and the laborious and labour-intensive anchoring of buoys in very deep waters is eliminated (Swiss lakes, like other mountain lakes in Chile can reach 1,000 ft-plus!) A "green" solution instead of using thousands of feet of twine and rocks!
As for the racing, unbeaten with four race wins, the team of the Circolo Velico Lago di Lugano (Sacha de Micheli, Andrea Rossi, Cesare de Marchi and Matteo Colombo) took the victory in the second round of the Swiss Sailing Promotion League in Romanshorn. With this victory, Lugano also moves up to second place on the series leaderboard.
After a wonderful training day on Friday with nice wind conditions, Saturday was a disappointment. Just two races were sailed in light winds. Lugano laid their foundation stone for success with a first race win. The win in the second race was taken by the YC Tivoli Lucerne, which finished second in the end. After that, the circulating winds did not allow any more racing for the day- swimming was required!
At Sunday's morning briefing, the wish for wind was fulfilled- somewhat. A nice morning breeze blew across the lake. However, the wind disappeared during the first starting sequence and the subsequent waiting demanded the patience of the sailors. At 1230pm the west wind finally appeared! With steady 6-10 kt breeze, the Romanshorn PRO was able to quickly dash off 6 races (3 flights).
The sailors from Lago di Lugano decided win all their races and had a clear lead for themselves. The competition had nothing to overcome the speed of the Luganoans!
The Lucerne Yacht Club sailed a consistent series in the top 3 and was unchallenged for second place. Behind them in third was the SC Oberer Zürichsee skippered by Christa Kuster.
See more at swiss-sailing-league.ch.