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Gotta Love It 7 (Seve Jarvin): winner. Image copyright Frank Quealey.
by Frank Quealey
Australia’s Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton and newly recruited member of the Gotta Love It 7 team Scott Babbage, dominated the European 18ft Skiff Championship, which was sailed at Malcesine, Lake Garda, Italy over the past week.
The Gotta Love It 7 team recorded 8 wins and 2 second placings for a total of 12 points to defeat fellow Australian teams SLAM (Grant Rollerson) on 32 points and Appliancesonline (John Winning Jr.) on 34 points.
America’s Howie Hamlin (CST Composites) finished fourth on 38 points with the top European team, Hungary’s Liberty Sailing (Miklos Ujhelyi Gaspar) fifth on 44 points. As top Europeans on points, the Hungarian team becomes the European champion.
Jarvin, as well as being the current Giltinan champion, was also the winning skipper in 2008 and crewed with Euan Mc Nicol in a 2005 victory. Howie Hamlin (USA) is also a former European and Giltinan Champion.
Fraglia Vela, Lake Garda: the venue
Local Reports on the Racing
Opening Day
Twelve teams from Australia, America, the UK, Germany, Hungary, Denmark and France found their way to fragliavela Malcesine, a beautiful club on the eastside of lake Garda, to compete for the title European Champion 2010. This race is also part of the Worldtour, consisting of the JJ.Giltinian in Australia and the San Francisco race in autumn.
The conditions here in this time are normally around 12-16 knots in the afternoon in southerly winds and we expect perfect skiffsailing during the whole week. twelve races are sceduled but the crews decided in the first skippermeeting to sail even more if the conditions are like that. Additional a long distance race will be held in a separate ranking.
Although the sun is currently hiding and even some drops of rain are falling we hope for better weather thats necessary for the good thermical winds, lake garda is famoust for.
on Monday a meeting for the European class is sceduled to plan the Grand-Prix-Tour for 2011, on Friday the Annual worldclass meeting is sceduled to make further progress direction one world one 18 class.
Day One
After a postponement of 90 minutes all twelve teams found their way onto the water. in tricky conditions with shifting southerly winds of 8-12 knots soon a division of the fleet became clear. In the front there were Gotta love it 7 and Slam, the rest followed.
Rollo with Slam won the first race, the second saw after a stunning start just one boat heading to the seemingly bad lakeside, the other teams found their ways along the beach, normally a save way. Not in this second race, at the first mark Slam had an advantage of nearly 200 meters, followed by the vikings around Flemming, Appliances Online from Australia and Magic Marine from Germany. Shifts and gusts made this race very difficult and mixed the rankings nearly every minute. The most interesting in this race was the hunt of Gotta Love it 7, heading for the first place and finally catching Rollo and Slam on the last upwind.
Shifts and gusts made this race very difficult and big changes in the rankings took place every minute. At the end of the day and two races Steve Jarvin with Gotta love it 7 leads the table followed by Grant Rollerson with Team Slam, also 3 points, Flemming Clausen from Denmark with 7 points and the Hungarian Team with Miklos Ujhelyi in fourth place with ten points.
Day Two
After a strong northwind, that didn't increase as normally, all all teams tried to make their way onto the water in gusts up to 18 knots and tricky conditions.
This day finds Howie Hamlin recovered from his bad first day and with consistent two seconds and one win he moved up inthe tableau to third place, just topped from Steve Jarvin with Gotta love it 7 with one break of Gennaker in race one on two consecutive wins in race four and five. In the last race of the day they made their way far ahead of the fleet for they got a private gust from first mark one and the rest of the fleet layed in calm winds. So they won with nearly 500 Meters before the rest of the fleet that came closely together into the finish line within 3 minutes.
So the tableau finds Steve Jarvin in the lead with 5 points, followed by Grant Rollerson with ten and Howie Hamlin with 11 Points. Next teams are Appliances online followed by the first European, the Hungarian Team Liberty Sailing with 19 points. On 6 is the british team TMF with Jarrod Simpson, on 7 the danish team with Flemming Clausen, followed by Team Magic Marine, leading the German Triplett in the ranking. End of the fleet is the british team of Hydesails and the french team around Olivier Dumaine, they are the only team in the fleet to sail with Pinhead Mains. The next morning shows great conditions again and promisses stable southerly winds between 12 and 15 knots, its the last day before layday.
Day Three
The third day of the European Championship showed no surprises in the top 4. The whole week Lake Garda showed not very typical difficult conditions and this day was like the ones before. In decreasing southerly winds, the fleet succeeded to finish to races.
Two teams had bad days the Hungarinan and the German Team Magic Marine and so changes settled in the second part of the fleet. The british Team TMF and the Denish Team GP Covers climbed one step to 5 and six, the Hungarians dropped to seven the rest of the fleet remained as it were before. The last race saw in dying winds two Teams of the end of the tableau gaining a good place in the last race, were they took some good shift in the last upwind and overran nearly the complete field in front of them except the first four.
The day ended with a big party in a garden restaurant in Malcesine and the next day was layday, good for some teams that celebrated in some oldtown-Pubs of Malcesine until early morning.
Day Four
After a calm morning the southwind came in, stronger than before. Perfect conditions for the camera-team from Sailing Chanel and the sailors themselves. 15 'til 18 knots were measured and the forecast was stable, maybe dropping a little.
Most of the teams decided to go for little rigg, three stayed with big rigg. The first race saw Gotta love it 7 in front of the fleet with there little rigg, seemingly the right decision. Most of the teams with big rigg had problems and some crash between Appliances Online and TMF minimized the fleet further.
The second race wind was turning up to 18-20, in gusts 22 knots and behind the guys from Gotta Love it 7 the fleet stretched. In the finish the Hungarians ended second taking advantage from a capsize in the last gybe of Team Magic Marine from Germany who finished third after a quick recovery.
The last race saw Slam from Australia changed to little rigg and at the first mark the top of the fleet were Gotta Love it 7, Magic Marine and Slam. After a stunning downwind with big jumps of Slam there last Jump was to big and they capsized.
So the race finished with another win of Gotta love it 7, followed by the strong Hungarians, only team with big rig performing good, next teams were the German block with Team "Remember the days", EuroLink and Magic Marine, followed by Slam and Howie Hamlin on the places.
So for the European teams it was a great day, its happening not very often they succeed to stay in front of two of the best 18 sailors of the world, Grant Rollerson and Howie Hamlin with their teams. Lets wait for the last raceday.
Day Five
In perfect skiff conditions the last two races of the series were held on friday. Sun and 12 knots of wind invited the sailors for a wonderful day of racing.
After a crash with Appliances online on day 4 the British team TMF couldn't sail anymore and got redress for the whole series, an average 5th, so it was a hard line to top for the other European teams. Right from the start you could feel the nervousity of the teams the first recall of the whole series happened and it was the denish team GP Covers, still fighting for the title European Champion.
So they had to enter the starting line and chasing the whole field. The fleet found their way up along the beach and had some interesting tacking duells within 50 Meters of the beach. The first mark showed the guys from Gotta love it 7 in front as nearly always. Behind them their was the fight for the places on the podium and after ups and downs the final ranking has been made clear.
Winner of the Championshgips has been Steve Jarvin and his team Gotta love it 7 in front of Grant Rollerson with Slam and John Winning Jr. wit Appliances online.
First European and therefore European Champion were The Crew Liberty Sailing from Hungary, congratulations to Miklos and his crew which showed a great sailing during the week. Runnerups are Jarrod Simpson with TMF from the UK, Flemming Clausen from Denmark with GP Covers, followed by the German Team Magic Marine in fourth place.The rankings behind them were EuroLink and Remember the days from Germany, Olivier Dumaine and his crew from France followed by Jack Grogan with Hyde Sails from the UK.
After the finish we started to practice a new invention in Europe, the Debriefing. The three top teams were questioned by the others about every mysterium of their sailing, according trimm, boathandling and tactics during the day and it was moderated by Howie Hamlin how did a fine job. This is to be continued in the next European races after every day to bring the people together to share the tips and to learn from the better so we get better knowledge all over more teams to provide fantastic sailing in this wonderful race machines.
Overall Results (top 5)
1. AUS 7 Seve Jarvin - Gotta Love It 7 12pts
2. AUS 2 Grant Rollerson - SLAM 32pts
3. AUS 3 John Winning - Appliances Online 34pts
4. USA 1 Hamlin Howie - CST Composites 38pts
5. HUN 18 Miklos Ujhelyi Gaspar - Liberty Sailing 44pts
European 18 Foot Skiff Championships
Aussie 18 Footers League
