29er EuroCup during Kiel Week 2019
by Andre Ozanne 26 Jun 2019 14:12 PDT
Mathias BERTHET and Alexander FRANKS-PENTY (NOR) win the 29er EuroCup during Kiel Week © Kiel Week / Sascha Klahn
118 teams from 18 nations entered for the 29er Euro Cup in Kiel part of the extravaganza of dinghy racing in the ever-changing Baltic. With the 1972 Olympics held at Kiel the event has a brilliant infrastructure with an atmosphere on and off the water to die for, and this year the sun shone and the wind did its thing.
With the 29ers divided in to two starts and some ultra-keen sailors day one and two took its time with multiple general recalls and a long list of BFDs for many. With a planned 18 races and one discard the letters or multiple letters add up. The first two days were incredibly long days out - I guess you could look at it that the sailors definitely received their moneys worth.
The hot favourites Mattias and Alex of Norway had two big scores on day one and with a very high standard of racers from Finland, Germany, USA, NZL, Denmark, all racing incredibly well so they must have felt the pressure.
Norway is a very small sailing nation so they are doing something special with these two, as they then snuck in seven straight bullets; that may sound easy but they were pushed hard by the Fins, the Swedes and the Americans.
Conditions were varied testing multiple skills and a testament to the abilities of the podium teams, and all the other 115 teams too.
The 29er Worlds take place in Gydnia in July and the Europeans in Garda in August so more big fleet international racing is on the agenda.
Hats off to all the teams in their skills and tenacity and I hope they had some energy to sample the delights of Kiel Week's legendary Woche!
Full Results: manage2sail.com/en-US/event/kiwo19#!/results?classId=29er