WASZP European Championship at Lake Garda - Day 2
by Jonny Fullerton 30 Jun 2018 10:18 PDT
28 June - 1 July 2018
WASZP Europeans at Lake Garda day 2 © WASZP Class
When have you ever heard this before? "It's not normally like this here".
After day 1 not having a breath of wind, day 2 looked to be very promising. With the Northerly dying early and the temperature at 30 degrees, it was set to be an amazing day on the water. However the breeze never quite filled in to the required pressure for consistent foiling, hovering between 6 - 9 knots. It did however provide a different element to WASZP racing.
Since last year the standard has improved quite considerably and the French team burst out of the blocks with Manu Taine leading at the first mark. He was closely followed by fellow countryman Pierre Leboucher, whilst the local Italian sailors from the newly formed Italian WASZP Association, Tommy Ciaglia and Margherita Porro, showed fantastic light air polish to be entrenched in the top six.
As the breeze got softer and softer, it became a battle of whether or not to try and foil. Bruce Curson of New Zealand made the call early to not foil and it paid off, moving from high teens at the first mark to 4th place overall. Australian's Tom Trotman and Andrew McDougall did a fantastic job of hanging in there as the breeze faded.
Then the 'play of the day' came when Nicolai Jacobsen rounded in 7th place for the final time and popped onto the foils. The Norwegian young gun fired down the run on the puff of the day to hit the lead from Tommy Ciaglia only to fall off the foils on the final gybe to let the young Italian through for the win followed by Manu Taine and Jacobsen who slipped to 3rd.
Top speed of the day on a slow day was by Alexander Hogheim-Dahl, who posted an impressive 16.1 knots in no more than 10 knots of windspeed.
In the evening the WASZP party was held in the town of Malcesine, with team GBR again impressing with their performances off the water.
Today looks to be a much better day with 2 races planned for the morning and 3 races in the afternoon. Hopefully Lake Garda returns to its very best.