2010-09-09 Swiss Championship in Spiez

Tough, tough!!!

We just come back from the first esse850 Swiss Championship, the level of the class keeps going up, not only because of the fact that more and more pro's are sailing in the class but because the average level of the top boats keeps going up. Which means any error is paid back by places lost, this from the start to the finish.

Let's take things in the order, wednesday we put the boat in the water in Spiez, everything is fine, we more her on the hotel's dock which means a 25m meter walk between room and boat... Thursday first day of racing in a wonderfull panorama, with the Alps all around, forest and little chalets all over the place.

Photo : All rights reserved by YCSp

The first results are an10th, an 9th and a 8th, we are in the montain so it is normal to be climbing  up ...

Photos : All rights reserved by YCSp

Ok let's go for the second day, early moring start, in the morning breeze, the wind pressure and shifts give a hard time to all tacticians and helmans and trimmers. A bit of left a puff, a whole, some pressure all the way up and down. And this is a 9th. The time to have a mid-day break and the races resume in the afternnon. Nice thermic wind, start and 2 minutes in the race no speed anymore... we struggled all the race long to find speed or hight none of them being available to us. A 17th! we are deep in the valley!!! The following race we are back to our standards, an 8th.

Ok one race to go on the final day, start at 13.30, due to lack of wind the races are postponed until 16.00, we start in front of Thun with a wonderfull view on the Eiger Mönch and Jungfrau (see picture above). The pin end is very favoured, we start in the middle of the line and play a catch-up race in the traffic. We end up in 11th position which will be our end result. We are not very happy with it and need to work out our weaknesses for the next race in Zürich.

You can find more pictures following the link.