Devastating result at the Junior European Championships

Two days of training and then straight into the Junior Europeans at lake Lipno.

We travelled to the Czech Republic on the transport with the Berlin Sailing Squad, but unfortunately the coach is designated for the beginners in the FX so we relied on a cooperation with others. Unfortunately our usual partners had just gotten a new inexperienced coach who did not want to be responsible for more than 3 boats. In the end we were left without a proper coach vessel or coach, leading us poorly into the competition.

In training we made the best out of it, checking out the venue and comparing our speed. On Tuesday we even tested our new Gennaker for the first time, which was an incredible experience. However leading into the regatta we had difficulties performing consistently. Our starts were often poor, on our upwinds we made to many small mistakes towards the mark and on the downwind we failed to position ourselves well. Our results did not really get better during the next days either and while we had a couple of good things each race, frankly we never sailed a good race from beginning to Finnish.

Of course the venue was challenging, with big wind shifts and gusts, but what we experienced was that everyone managed to perform in at least one race since the conditions were somewhat unpredictable. In the end the best teams were those who could adjust to the wind and the fleet most constantly and sail a steady series. The points were tight, signaling the competitiveness, but we have to admit that we were crushed by our results. We think it’s hard to see that our hard work during dozens of days of training does not pay off, but we recognize the class in the fleet and draw motivation from our poor performance. We will come back stronger. Next up Kiel Week with a strong fleet and promising wind.