OK Dinghy International Regatta on Lake Garda, Italy - Day 3
by Robert Deaves 14 Jul 17:03 PDT
12-15 July 2021
The OK Dinghy fleet is loving sailing on Garda - 2021 OK Dinghy International Regatta - Day 3 © Emilio Santinelli / Circolo Vela Arco
No racing was possible on the third day of the OK Dinghy International Regatta on Garda on Wednesday, with lack of wind and then more storms threatening, leading to the cancellation of racing late afternoon.
After Tuesday's storms, which reports indicate were the worst for 120 years, the weather was distinctly unsettled with much cloud remaining and no wind on the lake. Nothing much changed after a two-hour postponement so racing was abandoned for the day and the fleet enjoyed the free, cold beer.
The race officer, Alessandra commented, "Unfortunately the weather didn't permit us to start on time so we postponed until 3 pm, but the thunder was coming and weather was very bad, so we decided to cancel today.
"This class is very polite and funny. Always good on the stat line. They push but always on the right side, and there have been no boats over so far. I hope to meet everyone again another year."
Michael Nissen was one of the top German OK Dingy sailors in the 1970s and is back, 44 years later, sailing his first OK Dinghy regatta since then and is quite pleased with himself after a couple of days training. He even built his own boat over the winter.
"The first is feeling is very good. The boat is more competitive than I am. That's good news as it's harder to train the boat than the helmsman, though I guess the helmsman still has a long way to go to with the manoeuvres. But it wasn't so bad. Right now I am 7th after six races. I did not expect that, so I hope that continues.
"But it's great fun to sail the boat and there is a still a lot to learn and I am looking forward to the other races this year, the Danish championship, Kiel Week and the German championship. I hope to take part in all of them."
The results remain unchanged from Tuesday. The fleet is scheduled to return to the water at 0830 on Thursday for the final two races.
Results after Day 3: (top ten, 6 races)
1 FRA 11 Valerian Lebrun 7pts
2 GER 77 Soenke Behrens 13pts
3 DEN 21 Bo Petersen 16pts
4 NZL 599 Greg Wilcox 20pts
5 DEN 1565 Mogens Johansen 33pts
6 GER 7 Andreas Pich 37pts
7 GER 852 Michael Nissen 45pts
8 FRA 1859 Yann Vilein 45pts
9 GER 75 Dirk Dame 47pts
10 GER 5 Ralf Tietje 49pts
Full results available here.