GER Nacra 17 ace, Paul Kohlhoff, crowned GER 'A' Class National Champion at Garda.

This year the event-proven Circolo Vela Arco had been selected as the venue for German nationals at Lake Garda on October 3rd-6th.  Christian Schäfer reports. 

Although the boatpark chat was whispering of more mild breezes in autumn time, the Lake Garda wind machine was not shy in delivering the trademark conditions even at the end of the sailing season in the Northern hemisphere.

The entry list of almost 50 boats from 8 countries promised an intriguing event either, apart from Mischa Heemskerk and Konstantinos Trigonis, one of the most prominent German participant was the German Nacra 17 Rio Olympian Paul Kohlhoff, and following many other Nacra 17 sailors ‘training’ in A-Class. Paul also pointed out the fact that the foiling A-Class is representing an ideal training platform, not only for Nacra 17 entries, but also for other high performance dinghy crews and helmsmen.

Races started on Friday afternoon in mild Southern breeze, but already by the second race the wind peaked to 20+ knots. The racing saw Mischa dominating the fleet with two bullets, followed by Sandro Caviezel and Konstantinos Trigonis in second places respectively. Saturday started again in Southern winds, this time remaining moderate for the three races. Mischa achieved one win, Paul Kohlhoff managed to get the better end of two races, representing his class, considering he was sailing only the second race day on his AD3.

The final race day was forecast to sail in a North wind, requiring everyone to be on the line at 8am, so setting up boats in the early morning dawn. Conditions at the starting line were quite harsh with a lot of swell and 20+ knots of wind. Mischa won all three races and twice followed by Sandro Caviezel in second and once by Alex Meister, who showed a very consistent performance over the whole event after his win in Campione one weekend earlier.

At the prize giving, this meant for the overall ranking a well deserved win for Mischa, followed by Paul Kohlhoff, Sandro Caviezel, Alex Meister and Michal Kornesczuk. National title overall belongs to Paul, who was really enjoying A-Class on the water as well as the networking within the class onshore.

The Classic ranking has seen Swedens Alberto Farnesi in front, achieving a respectable 15th place overall given conditions would have benefitted foilers, followed by Florian Hennig, Georg Reutter and Norbert Bauer. Florian also won the National foiling title consequently.

Summarising,  the venue provided truly championship-worthy conditions, and the club was doing all the necessary things on and off the water to make this a perfect event.

So now on to the next nationals at the end of season, the French nationals in late October.  

Full results here