Thursday, June 17, 2010

Laser European Championships 2010


We travelled to the Laser Europeans a few days after the finish of the Delta Lloyd Regatta.
This event was held at the Olypic Sailing site of 1980 (the one that was boycotted), in Tallin Estonia.

It is a beautiful city with a fully restored "old town" dating back to the 13th century.
The venue and facilities were top notch , as well as the regatta organization.

150 Lasers and 90 Radials came north for the event! This was as high caliber fleet as you will see, only a worlds would be a hair tougher.

Luke Ramsay towed our coach boat from Holland to Tallin on a route that took him thru Copenhagen and Stockholm. He took an over night ferry from there directly to Tallin.

All the teams from over 50 counties arrived a few days prior to the event and we prepared for measurement. A few days training were sqeezed in , then the regatta began.

Luke Ramsay and Ricardo Montemayer were in the Laser class for Royal Van and Isabella Bertold in the Radial.

It was a six day event with generally wind on the moderate side, there was a breezy day the third day in. Results for the group were encouraging with highlights on certian days. Luke placed 5th in one of the heats and made the gold fleet (top third), ricardo had a few decent races but still ended up in the bronze fleet ,(with excellent international experience gained), Isabella hung in really well in the international field and made the gold fleet, keeping good scores coming in that fleet.

The Regatta Website is excellent with Photos and video from the event, Results are there too- http://www.laser2010tallinn.eu/web/

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Delta Lloyd Regatta 2010


The regatta formerly known as the SPA regatta was held over the week of May 26th to the 30th.

Royal Van had a solid group of 9 sailors spread over 6 Olympic Classes.
Mike Leigh, Luke Ramsay, Ricardo Montemayer in the Laser
Isabella Bertold and Jen Spalding in the Radial
Nicola Girke and Zak Plasvic in the RSX
John Romanko in the Finn
Hunter Lowden in the 49er

The event had a good variety of conditions with breeze most days a only a few canceled or delayed races and was an excellent tune up for the major summer events coming in Europe for the team.

Results were up and down for most. Highlights for the team- Nicola"s 12th and Isabella's 13th overall. (Isabella won the final race of the event).

This event, along with the other world cup events, is always a bit of a spectacle , with the major sailing countries, like Britain, France, Spain, Australia bringing their full support for their National team. A great environment for our sailors to hone their skills and well worth the trip.

Results are found @ http://www.deltalloydregatta.org/


Al