Manuel Calavia retains the Spanish Crown

The Spanish A-Class Nationals were held last weekend in Calafell, just down the coast from Barcelona. Conditions were pretty light throughout the whole weekend with winds between 5 to 9 knots, with a couple of races just under 12 knots. Friday started with zero wind and the breeze built up just enough to kick off the first race after a 2 hour delay. On Saturday the fleet awoke to stormy conditions but these suddenly changed into a perfect sunny day. Sunday was pretty much like the Saturday but with lighter winds.

With 5 Olympic sailors within the 26 boat fleet and made this one of the strongest fleets in the World. Sailing their first A-Class event, gold medalists Anton Paz and Fernando Echavarri, were both sailing the new exploder Ad3. Fernando only jumped on his boat for the first time on the Friday before the race, in a manner similar to what the new GBR sailor Chris Rashley did in Poland. Both sailors took this regatta to be part of their learning curve and they had no expectations other than testing. With their talents though, we should expect to see them in podium places on the upcoming regattas.

It was also the first event on an Exploder Ad3 for the Spanish ace Manuel Calavia, and is boat featuring the new cassette T rudders and a North sail.  He is one of the few top sailors to have sailed both the DNA F1 and the Ad3 and he was unbeatable with 5 bullets. Gustavo Doreste was pretty consistent on the Exploder A16 and Toni Ballester sailed very well into third place on his DNA F1. Micky Todd ended up in 4th on his blue classic non-foiling Scheurer and his curved boards, with the highlight in the first race in the very light winds after he had an amazing comeback on the last leg to end up finishing 1st.

Photos - www.d3appliedtechnologies.com