After another day of tricky and shifty wind, three general recalls and some good sailing, we’re proud to present our new european champions Matt Burge and Richard Wagstaff, vice-champions Dave Wade and Tim Hartley and bronze medalists Matt Rainback and Simon Foskett! However, the first seven overall places go to British teams. The first Slovenian crew are Eva Peternelj and Valentina Baruca on 19th place and 3rd in women competiton.
Big congratulations to all the winners and warmly welcome to the prize giving ceremony at 7pm!
Matt Burge and Richard Wagstaff: “It was very difficult racing, extremely tricky. Although there were only three races that was probably one of the hardest events we’ve done, because it was so easy to sail a bad result in all three races. There was no consistency, you just had to always get in a pressure and a shift, where ever that was. And yes, we’re really pleased. Naturally we wouldn’t be fully happy until hopefully we win the Worlds next week, but this is surely a good start. We think this is probably one of the most competitive events in lots of years in Fireball, there’s a number of people that have won the championships in the past, who all of them seem to be here, so yes – to win here is perhaps extra special, so I just pray that we can try to do that again. But we’ve done it this week, so there’s no reason we can’t do it next week, we’ll just push it on and try to do it again. Thanks to everybody, the event has been perfectly organized, GoSailing is great, you definitely get the sense that it’s been done properly.”
Dave Wade and Tim Hartley: “The championship has been very very good so far, very light, very shifty, we tried to stay consistent, play the middles, sometimes it worked, sometimes it hasn’t. We’re happy with a result. For the Worlds, let’s hope we’ll have a few more races, not quite as light, but it’s been fine so far, no complains.”
Matt Rainback and Simon Foskett: “We had quite a few boats very close to us before today’s race, within one or two points, so we knew we had to push a little bit more. We had a good start and from then on we were just protecting third and keeping up with the two guys in front of us and hopefully, if we come third overall now, is looking good to come top five in the Worlds next week and that’s our goal.”
Eva Peternelj and Valentina Baruca: “We usually sail on 470, but decided to participate in this championships because they’re held here, in Portoro?, and provide a great opportunity to sail in bigger fleet with strong competitors. We’re happy with a result, although it could be better. We did some mistakes we shouldn’t have done, so we’re really looking forward to the worlds, hope for light wind again and hopefully we’ll sail better then.”
Four times World Champions Chips Howarth and Vyv Townend: “We’re not too happy with our result. We’re surprised how light the wind has been, we only trapezed in one race. In the beginning of the week we had terrible thunderstorms and after the thunderstorms the wind has never had time to settle down. I have a lot of sympathy for the race officer, he did well to get three races in for us, but this was supposed to be a nine race series, so he’s really struggled. It’s been extremely light, hasn’t been a good preparation for the worlds, because we haven’t seen the true conditions across the course area, but it’s been a good fun, a lot of practice with so many recalled starts. But we’re still hoping for the next week to be a little bit windier with hopefully a little bit more steady conditions. We think we’re going ok, fast enough, we’re not strategically sailing so well at the moment, but we’ll work on this for the next week.”
