The final day had promised to be rinse and repeat yet again. Friday the 13th remember…  But the race officers were determined not to be beaten and get as near a full series in as possible and at least get to that sailing holy grail of the second discard.  Italian honour must be at stake too! Once out on the course, it was found by the sailors that things were not as traumatic as the previous day wind-wise.

Thursday, the A-Cat Euros is entering its crucial phase.  With enough races sailed to declare it a Championship, but too few to allow a crucial second discard.  And believe me, there were many sailors, and many of the highly ranked ones, who dearly need that second discard!  

Random Euro25 pictures can now be seen here

The 2025 has just closed after the Classics sailed 9 races, and the Opens sailed 10.  Challenging light end conditions, report to follow.

Gustavo battled hard to overcome  UFD and NSC penalties that fortunately dropped after 9 races leaving him second in the regatta after Scott Anderson.

Kuba just showed a masterclass in light airs foiling, with Lamberto Cesare in second.

Well done to all who sailed and contributed!

Many places changed hands in the 4th and 5th rounds at the A-Cat Euros in Riccione.  Light, minimal conditions continue to delight and frustrate in equal measure on both courses.  You can be high in the fleet at the top mark, feeling really good, then it all falls over on the downwind and you discovered you’d haemorrhaged 15 -20 places by the bottom.  This was the story across the courses on Wednesday.

Euros race feed - Then click on 'Go To Race' link to see each race progress.

Results - 

The A-Class Catamaran European Championships finally got underway in Riccione on Tuesday, after their opening day was postponed because the winds in the race areas were below the 5 kt class limit.  This, combined with a rather large beach break waves which were the hangover of high winds over in Croatia, would also have potentially risked too much damage to these lightweight carbon thoroughbreds.  Lessons were learned from the Punta Ala Worlds last year about the joys of launching and recovering in such surf, when Exploder ran out of their entire spare rudder winglet stock on day

Under the baking Italian sun with the thermometer reading 30 deg, the A-Cat Europeans took to the water for their practice race on Sunday.  The race start time had already been set back an hour by the Race Committee on the previous day, so was now scheduled at 15:00 sharp.  But there were no Delta flag rules in force, meaning that the sailors were free go to and fro afloat as they pleased, although most chose not to do and used the time to check their boats and redo that bad splice they found again. 

For the latest Euro 2025 images, see here

Reports to follow.

Great report from the International German and Dutch Championships in Malcesine/Lake Garda. from Chris Stock.

Lake Garda is recognised by the international sailing community as one of the best sailing spots in the world, if not the best. Fantastic scenery, Italian dolce vita, clear fresh water and, above all, fairly reliable thermal winds leave little to be desired. It was therefore due to the attractiveness of the area that almost 80 top international sailors from the A-Cats in the Foiler and Classic divisions came to Malcesine for the joint Dutch and German championships.