The First Europa’s Cup was held yesterday at Tacticat.

First of all congratulations to all sailors that showed PERFECT sportsmanship and fair play all along the event.

During two hours sailors from all over the world sailed 5 team-fleet races and 2 boat-boat match races.

Event started at 22:00 GMT as planned. The low attendance of USA sailors (only 2 at the beginning where we expected 6 or more) asked for a change of plans and the initial Europe vs. USA/World match became a more balanced Spain vs. World.

Sailors from The Netherlands, Germany and France changed shirts to share their fate with USA, Israel, Canada and Australia …. And races started 9 boats per team.

First couple of races were, how would I say?, a bit chaotic due to the null experience of team racing. Moreover when previous designated captains couldn’t make it in time for several reasons.

Spain won the two first races with a wide score difference (for the desperation of ‘natural’ leader Wouter ).

3rd and 4th regattas were also won by Spain team but with tighter score. It is curious how teams evolved their tactical skills from the first race.

Although 5th and last race was clearly won by World team the final score ESP 84 – World 104 leaves the Europa’s Cup to the Spaniards.

After the fleet races the teams designated one single boat for a match race competition to the best of three races. Jack (USA leader) won by large against Rony (ESP), getting the lead from the very beginning of the two races.

All in all a very satisfying event.

Special thanks to:
- Israel sailors who where awake at 3 AM local time.
- I20 Canadian sailors who saved American honour appearing in the last moment to sail with no previous Tacticat experience
- Jake, Wouter, Rony and Jllabres giving the spectacle with their master sailing
- Spanish Alcalina, the only woman, A-class sailor, who, well…, provided a colourful note (and made a 2nd position in first race!!).
- Claus (Aloha boat), half german-half Spanish, Adecat and catsailor member who was changing teams each race to make the teams even.

Spain accepts challenges from country or clan teams for next matches. They wait…


* *

Technically, Tacticat system performed OK. Max attendance during the event peaked to 20 boats and 5 spectators.

Several changes in the code will be nevertheless included in next versions to make things easier.
I just realized now that it would have been VERY EASY to take snapshots for you all to see some action (busy starts, the pack rounding the A-mark, Wouter sacrifice at the start line…). For the next time.

Thanks to all.
aestela

it was great!!!
i loved it!!!
personaly i preffer a regular competition since it's hard for me to accept that some one will sail just to disturb someone else but i guess that with some training team racing will be easier for me.
i truely enjoyed myself last night (morning)i stayed up until nearly 5 am.
looking forward to the next event and please lets not wait a month...
many thanks to you amando and to your efforts.
ziv - israel

I agree fully with Ziv here.

The 2 hours passed very quickly and I loved every minute of it, well most minutes anyway (when I wasn't screwing up !)

Team racing is indeed a different game but it is very educational in the way of tactics and rules.

Thanks alot for your efforts Amando

Wouter

I have now added http://wwp.greenwichmeantime.com/ to my list of favorites. So I can tell time.

The Spaniards should be having a field day with the lack of American punctuality, mine included. <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif" alt="" />

I too thoroughly enjoyed the Europa Cup and hope it will become a more frequent feature of Tacticat. To that end, I formally challenge the Spanish Team to a rematch!

Agreed - it was a good time...i only wish I had been able to be ontime! Armando - thanks again for your hard work...I'm looking forward to the second in the series!

Yeah I was TWO hours late. I did not understand when I was the only one there.

Sorry I missed it. Congrats to all who won.

Hint for Robi:

To do well in a race you should NEVER be more than 30secs late for a start!!!

<img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

And this from a coastie <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" />

Come on now! You know better. ahhahaha If you call the CG for help you better be ready to wait an hour or two.

You are better off calling Sea Tow.

Crazy aint it! its extremely frustrating for us at the lower end of the political food chain.