Europeans 2014 @Cercle Voile Bordeaux: Glenn Ashby Champ, Caviezel grabs Euro Crown.

Excellent event organized by Cercle Voile Bordeaux. Although some races were held in tricly 4-5knots, it was a good challenge for the foilers to see again how they perform in the lowest wind possible to start a race.
As reported in the week, Glenn just owns this Class, he sailed a Dna to the victory with new developed stepped foils by Mischa Heemskerk plus Exploder rudders.

I saw him in the qualys in my same course and the difference he get on the rest was too much. He and others also managed to foil in say 8knots, when so they were just gone.
In the Silver fleet there were some foiling or attempting to gain vmg out of it, but with unstable wind is not that easy.

The reality is that beyond foiling or not, you still need to be a a talent or train hard to make it work in a race.
And of course all the top riders in the Gold fleet that foils have that talent or simply put lots of hours and hard work to be on the top. (airborne or floating mode)

100% floaters like Matthias Dietz on his Nikita were a challenge for the top guns in lighter conditions, and Matthias also did well in the medium range winds. He told me he is practicing and learning to foil at home.
Dietz is one of the biggest assets this Class have along Scott Anderson (that finished 6th overall) and many other sailors & builders.

I told Scott he was doing quite well against the foilers and that he had his time, he looked at me and replied : "Hey, it is not enough, I want to have additional 'Times' of my own..." Great attitude by Scott , still performing and showing the way as he did in the last race of the event with the final bullet.

On the top riders: Glenn , well, there is not much to add, he is beyond any analysis Nr 1 A-cat sailor in Hisotry by far.
Steve Brewin went foiling mode this time and got excellent results, surely with more time he will be challenging Glenn as he has been doing for years. Steve has his own World Title captured at Aarhus 2011. He was sailing an Exploder.

The stars of the event were young Aussie Jason Waterhouse (Exploder) and Swiss newcomer Sandro Caviezel. (Scheurer G7)
Jason has been peforming for years in the H16, F16, F18 and at Bordeaux he was showed he was a fast learner.
Sandro is relatively new to the Class, and with his brother Daniel joined forces with Andy Scheurer this year to launch a new version of the Scheurer G series.
Sandro was a threat all week scoring average low top 5 places in any condition. He was 4th overall becoming the first Euro guy and thus the new European Champion for 2014.
Great news for the Class having new guys putting pressure to the 'Old Guard'.

In the Silver fleet, Hervé Ledue was 1st and Tibo Laudren (Dna) 2nd with the Askell. The Silver fleet was lots of fun too, and in the last races I started to grab rythm and got the nice feeling to share some legs with them.
My last race was a 15 (losing 2 places in the finish line after overtaking them in the gate). Finally I got a DPI 20, for not signing the return to land I guess, as when I went the gold was the only form available to sign.
Good lesson for rookies like us to respect the procedures set by the Organizing Club/ Class and be aware on this next time.

On the equipment no strange solution was used, and only refinement of Takapuna equipment was seen at Bordeaux. I think we will only see improvements on details next months too.

On the event only valid complain was the lack of daily pics. In fact I don´t have sailing images to publish , and the ones available the whole week were from Paula Kopylowicz.

Nevertheless Cercle Voile Bordeaux offered the widest range of conditions through the week and the Club/place was provided finally a good mix to challenge foilers & floaters alike.

To me, as for the 5 Arg rookie AClass sailors present at Bordeaux, it was an excellent week of sailing for debuting in an International event, or any A regatta for that matter.
All quite excited on the boat / racing and the learning process. We will surely come back next year with even more crews.

Congrats to the Class members on having such a nice group of people and taking care of this great Class.
Martín Vanzulli ,ARG 16. Sunday 29, July 2014.

Full Results at http://www.cerclevoilebordeaux.com/classeA/resultsA/resultat/classement…
Official Website http://www.cerclevoilebordeaux.com/classeA/home.htm