European Championships

Here is a link to the European Championship site. http://www.ycrhd.com/a-cat-em/ They start in a couple of days and the entry list looks very strong. Looks like a beautiful venue in Austria too. There are some photos of training up on the "News" link already.

Cheers
John Dowling
AUS 9

The first two races have been held in 5-7 and 6-8knots. Steve Brewin is leading. His big head sail seems to be doing the job so far but we'll see how things go if the wind gets up in to a decent range. There's plenty of competition with 85 starters including a lot from the pointy end of the fleet in the last Worlds. Full results are here http://www.ycrhd.com/a-cat-em/results/EC_ACAT2009_Race12.pdf

Cheers
John Dowling
AUS9

it sure is a beautiful venue for waterskiing , bike boating canoeing etc .
Statistically chances on decent wind conditions are weak.
Hope they get good wind allthough forecast is questionable
Good fleet !
Stevie can show he is a really allround topsailor...nearly as good as the other what's his name sail maker from Aus...

Anyway, lots of free beer i hope for them ...

Lets go to lago di garda at german nats in August or Dutch nationals in july
Dont have to pray too much for wind then .

No results up for yesterday yet. Maybe no wind............

Enjoy the German and Dutch Nationals in July. I'm off to the Top End of Australia Titles in Darwin in July. It will be nice and warm up there even thoght it's winter - about 32C during the day. It's about a 7500km round trip for me through the centre of Australia - a big adventure. The only issue is that 4m salt water crocodiles often appear in Darwin harbour, but the rescue boats carry high powered rifles if they get too inquisitive. Plenty of beer in Darwin too!

Cheers
John Dowling
AUS9

Results are up for races 3 and 4. There must have been something going on in race 4 with about 10 BFD's. There seems to be talk of a protest on the website but it's beyond my language skills. Anybody able to interpret..........

Cheers
John Dowling
AUS 9

I cant even intepret what BFD means?

For the meaning of BDF click on:
http://www.sailing.org/tools/documents/RRS2009-2012-[5950].pdf

Rule 30.2 of the RRS
30.2 Z Flag Rule
If flag Z has been displayed, no part of a boat’s hull, crew or equipment shall be in the triangle formed by the ends of the starting line and the first mark during the last minute before her starting signal. If a boat breaks this rule and is identified, she shall receive, without a hearing, a 20% Scoring Penalty calculated as stated in rule 44.3(c).
She shall be penalized even if the race is restarted or resailed, but not if it is postponed or abandoned before the starting signal. If she is similarly identified during a subsequent attempt to start the same race, she shall receive an additional 20% Scoring Penalty

Since the 4th race was completed after 9 p.m. I can understand the reason why the Racing Committee hoisted the Z flag

today three early starts , no race finished
friday 3 races planned
Nikita's doing well. Bob going lightning fast in 9-10 knts

BFD - what catfan said - but it tricked me for a while too until I thought about it. Black Flag Disqualification. Without the ISAF speak it means a PRO can raise the black flag as part of the starting sequence to indicate that anyone over the line in the last minute is disqalified. It's the next stage on from using code flag I which forces dip starters to go around the end of the line and restart. I've seen it used in big fleets where everyone is super keen and there have been multiple general recalls. The sight of it usually calms the boys down quite a bit..............

Nikita - now there's a nice boat - saw one in the flesh at the last Worlds.

Cheers
John Dowling
AUS 9

Pieterjan is right - nice venue for waterskiing - except for the timber!!!

The Rhien river fills the lake with water from the mountains, and wood pieces and timber. There was pieces of woods up to about 4m of length floating around all over the lake just under the surface, and that caused some dinged boards and even broken rudders.

Days without sailing because of light winds and one day with sailing in the night, first start at 18:00 and next start 19:45. Many starts with general recalls and starts abandond because of shifting or dropping winds.

The only decent brise was on the last day (where it was raining all day). At 14:00 we finally got a relatively stabil brise about 15 knot, and that moved some of the lake specialists back in the fleet, the kind of guys that actually enjoy floating around in 4 knots and find the shifts :-)