photo by: Klaas Lingbeek - van Kranen

Hi All,

nice to notice match racing is so rapidly growing into strenght and gets to every corner of the globe. This time we write from Doha, Qatar where 1st Doha Match Racing Cup 2007, ISAF Grade 3 event, will take place. After 2 days of preparations racing finally starts tommorow. 8 skippers from 4 countries will fight until Saturday for the prize money of US$5000. The boats to be used are Beneteau First Class 7.5 with spinnakers which just now went for practise.
The event is organized by Qatar Sailing & Rowing Federation which does a great job in providing participants in suitable service.

List of eligible skippers:
1. R. Mahesh
2. Sven-Eric Horsch
3. Shahid Bashir
4. Aashim Mongia
5. Abdul Aziz Al Mohamead
6. Amro Sattar
7. Amro Yousry
8. Simon Hare

Stay with us and follow this unique performance, in majority of "fresh" match racers from Asia and Africa.
Regards, Sofia

photo by Mats Bjorklund

Qingdao international Regatta 2007 known also as the Test Event was the last and final test before next year's Olympics.
It was our second time to Qingdao, China and it was impressive to see the immense growth of the Olympic Games' preparations.
This year 5 racing areas instead of 4 were used just as it is going to happen next year. 25 ITOs in Race Management head by Charley Cook and 25 International Judges chaired by David Tillett were appointed by ISAF to run the event together with Chinease officials. The on-shore infrastructure is impressive and leaves no place for complaints or remarks. Venue is fully equipped in all kind of facilities and human power employed to serve at the event + loads of volunteers let us expect exceptional Games.
The only problem is seen in weather conditions which seemed to be the greatest concern of whole sailing world. Lack of wind, big waves and strong current are unfortunately unavoidable. Races were sometimes run at the wind speed of approx. 5knts, when necesarry, though the Race Committee did their best to postpone races until the wind speed including current strenght was enough to have fair racing.
At the end of the opening series all classes managed to complete 6 races what allow them to run the medal race.
Last 2 days which were the medal race days were a very pleasant surprise for all of participants. Finally we had wind easly crossing 12 knts what meant Oscar flag for 470s and Finns. At least on the last day sailors could use their power to give additional speed to their boats :)
Second medal race day was even better as nice breeze was fulfilled with sun and blue sky which we missed during majority of the event.
Nevertheless, Qingdao is difficult spot to sail and pretty demanding in terms of physical preparation. I guess Olympic teams' Physios and Doctors will have plenty of work to do by next year.
In terms of on-the-water competition I have to admit that majority of fleets was very decently behaving. As usually most of rule 42 breaches were met in Finn and Laser fleets but generaly speaking the level of sailing performance increased. The reflection of this was also seen at low number of protests and requests for redress which allow us to think that competitors are more keen to solve any issues directly on the water and not to leave the result of the game at the "green table". I am happy to note this tendention which bring a far more fair play into sailing.
Full results can be found here

photo taken from www.wimra.org

Today, we welcome Katie Spithill who shares with us her opinions about Women Match Racing just after taking the Silver Medal at the 2007 ISAF Women's Match Racing World Championships.
Congratulations! :)

Sofia: What is your opinion about WIMRA's idea to organize the worlds-wide MR Clinics?
Katie: I think that WIMRA's commitment to raising awareness of Match Racing Worldwide will be invaluable to the sport, it is the best way to get new people involved.

How would you encourage women sailors to start their adventure with match racing?
Either try and attend one of the WIMRA Clinics or contact your local yacht club and try and get in contact with some other Match Racers.

What were your first steps and why you chose match racing?Match Racing was an option in the training scheme at my home club which is Royal Prince Alfred Yacht Club. This was very influential in my decision to match race.

As the co-instructor at the first WIMRA Clinic in Slovenia what are your expectations and tasks?
The main aim of this clinic is to introduce Match Racing to the particiapants, and my role in particualar is to use my experience and knowledge of Match Racing to help others.

Thank you Katie for an interview and good luck in further match racing events. Next step Gold Medal as I presume :)

photo by: Magdalena Lasocka

Having in mind that in life you need variety I thought it would be nice to share with you some windsurfing news. Since few years we host in Leba, Poland the event of World Windsurfing Tour Allegro.pl Cup. The event is held in Formula Windsurfing class and is joined by over 80 competitors from 5 continents.

This year we ran the regatta from 2 to 5 August, the hottest period over the seaside. As always also we started with first day spent on the beach due to lack of wind. That gave everyone the opportunity to bath in the sun and prepare for real racing. And this was possible next day when since the morning we knew the conditions will be enough for course racing with possibility of having a slalom in the afternoon. The "cookie" of the event was since beginning World Champion in FW Aussie Steve Allen who is nearly half-Polish as he married former FW competitor Pole Agata Pokorowska. Nevertheless, the oppontents were tough with Argentinian Gonzalo Costa Hoevel and Brit Ross Willims at the top of the ladder. Also the local "hero" Wojtek Brzozowski from Poland was expected to count in the competition despite just recovering from injury he had last year.

According to the forecast 3 races were completed and also one full round of slalom in which the preem was kept by Israeli Arnanon Dagan. With wind reaching up to 16 knts Arnon was unbeaten and showed very good performance.

Next day waves were too high to go for course racing and also wind was too tempting to play with normal races so we started with two full rounds of slalom. Unfortunately due to technical problems with the RC vessel PRO Bruno de Wannemaeker decided to go for beach starts. That was a great view. It's been a long time since we last had beach starts at our events so it was nice to do them again and also to encourage turists on the beach to look on the heats.
Again the fight was between Isreali, Aussie, Brit and Pole but at the end of the day it was Israeli Arnon Dagan who took the first place in slalom classification.
Of course it was not possible to avoid complaints on the beach starts which are very hard to judge in terms of OCSes but we dealt only with one official protest. I must say that RC did their best to provide competitors in fair racing.
Last day was again a day spent on the beach, with wind of 5knts and no perpectives for it to pick up. At 4p.m AP over A was hoisted and everyone could prepare for trip back home and evening party closing the regatta which as usual was full of good music and colourful drinks.

The complete results of Allegro.pl Cup can be found here
but with no astonishment the first prize in FW went to Aussie Steve Allen. 2nd place was taken by Argentinian Gonzalo Costa Hoevel and 3rd place went to young Italian Alberto Menegatti, former Junior Wolrd Champion.

Now it's time to do more serious job and fly to Qingdao for Preolympic Test Event.
See you there

fot. Magdalena Lasocka www.magdalena-lasocka.com

BPH TFI Olympic Cup in 49er that was held in Olsztyn at 26-29 July was definately the memorable event. 11 teams from 7 countries joined the regatta raced in the medal race format. Starting with light breeze on Friday, escaping from thunder on Saturday and finishing with perect conditions of 16-18 knt on Sunday we managed to run the full plan of 12 races. The competition was pretty tight with lots of ups and downs in the top five which was fighting for the prize money at the total amount of 15500 EUR.
From the very first day Danish brothers Peter and Soren Hansen secured their lead in the regatta. Despite having not that satisfying 2nd day they managed to defend 1st place and by winning the last race of the event happily take the first prize.
Nevertheless, it was not the only Danish team that showed good performance during BPF TFI Olympic Cup. 2nd team from Denmark Jonas Warrer and Martin Kirketerp were that close from being 2nd. On the final race they crossed the finishing line on the first place but unfortunately were scored OCS and Polish Team Marcin Czajkowski / Krzysztof Kierkowski jumped one step on the podium pushing Jonas and Martin onto 3rd place.
Very bad regatta had the defenders of the title Polish Team of Tomasz Stanczyk and Pawel Kuzmicki. They grew up on the lakes and were expected to be hard rivals during this years edition. Tomasz and Pawel started not that promising but on Saturday read the lake perfectly and jumped onto 2nd place overall. However having a bit of bad luck on Sunday and getting capsized in one of the races they lost their chance to do good and fall down onto 6th place, just behind the rewarded top 5.
Organization of BPH TFI Olympic Cup was possible due to huge involvment of sponsors and media. Promo Sailing Group that dealt with organizational part did a very good job. Main sponsor BPH TFI showed once again that for them sailing is having a big credit of trust and it is worth to invest in this discipline. We plan much more surprises for the next year edition :)
From umpires point of view for another time competitors proved that 49er class consists of very high-leveled people. Majority of protest incidents we had were solved by competitors themselves without any need of action from umpires. Only a very few red flags and some greens were all the summary we got. It was indeed nice to watch such a well behaviour from competitors side and as to me, a big keener of this high performance class, it only increased my sympathy for the skiffs.

The final results can be found here

One of the main attractions of BPH TFI Olympic Cup was a match race between Polish skipper of Desafio Espanol syndycate Karol Jablonski and popular ofshore skipper Krzysztof Baranowski, who sailed the world alone, on Optimists. We started with one penalty for Krzysztof Baranowski on the pre-start for not keeping clear as the gybing boat and then gave a penalty to Karol for touching the windward mark. It was a great fun both for competitors and spectators.
I already look forward to next year.
Big congratulations to organizers, sponsors and competitors for creating an outstandingly friendly atmosphere.

Sofia: What is the main goal of WIMRA activity in your strategic plan?
Liz Baylis: The long term objectives of WIMRA are to promote women's international match-race sailing; work for the inclusion of a Women's Match-Racing Event in the Olympic Games; and coordinate and encourage mixed-gender match racing and female participation in such events. To these ends, we are actively working with sailors and MNAs to help promote match racing events and clinics as well as organizing the sailors to contact their MNAs and ISAF Representatives to let them know that the sailors want Women’s Match Racing in the Olympics.

Where do you see the biggest advantages of women’s match racing that could encourage new sailors and MNAs to get involved?
Match Racing is accessible for all nations primarily because it is less expensive to mount a campaign and easier to get started. At the local level, you simply need two boats of any type to start match racing. You can practice and gain valuable experience simply by being on the course with one other boat. For fleet racing the only way to gain experience in large fleets is to compete in large fleets which generally means traveling and shipping your boat (which you have spend a large amount of money perfecting to gain every bit of speed advantage). Participating in match racing and mounting a match racing campaign is considerably less expensive than a fleet racing campaign. To actively compete on the international match racing circuit costs approximately 4 to 5 times less than the same level fleet racing campaign. When sailors compete, they do not need to bring their own boats to events – instead they show up at the event with their crew and race evenly match boats for a true test of sailing skills between competitors.

Is there any increase in Women’s match racing in the past few years? How does it look comparing to women fleet racing in Yngling class?
There has been an incredible increase in match racing over the past few years. From 2005 to 2006 there was an increase in the number of women’s match racing events from 36 to 50 and a 30% increase in the number of sailors on the ranking list. There are currently 193 women on the ISAF Women’s Match Racing Ranking List representing 31 countries as compared with 59 women representing 22 countries.

What’s WIMRA main intention in organizing the Clinics?
One of WIMRA’s primary objectives is to promote women’s match racing throughout the world. We see the Clinics as a wonderful way to expose sailors to the thrill and excitement of match racing. Once sailors try match racing, we feel there will be no turning back - they will have caught the bug and become “match racers”. We are running the clinics in locations that we think will attract sailors from countries where match racing is not commonly practiced with the hope of providing these sailors and countries with the needed boost to embrace match racing locally and start to participate internationally.

What is so encouraging in WIMRA Clinics that it is worth participating?
The Clinics will be run by world class match racers with training materials and curriculum put together by some of the best caches in the business. The sailors will come away with not only match racing skills but better sailing skills. Although the Clinics will emphasize match racing techniques, every participant will gain skills that can be translated to any type of sailboat racing they do.

Thank you Liz and good luck in achieving WIMRA's goals!

photo by: Michal Malicki

Toyota Sopot Eurosaf Match Racing Europeans came to the end. New European Champion has been announed and the gold medal went to Danish skipper Peter Wibroe and his team. I must admit that the level of competiton was indeed very high. During 4 days of racing we managed to complete one stage of Round Robin, Quarterfinals, Semi-Finals and Finals. We were lucky with the weather as we finished the Finals just before the big cloud with heavy rain covered whole north part of Poland.

But let's back to the competition. First 5 flights of the Round Robin were a little bit boring. Not too much happening at the pre-start, not too much fight and tipical match racing manuovers. Just few tight matches and few green-white flags. Luckly the second part of RR was a bit better. I guess the competitors had to get used to boats used in the EC. Organizers provided keel boats Diamant 3000 with spinnakers that required some trimming and technical knowledge.
The game was heaten up and reached the climax during semifinals where 4 teams fought for the final: Peter Wibroe (DEN), Pierre Antoine Morvan (FRA), Jure Orel (SLO) and Staffan Lindberg (FIN). I guess what surprised the most was lack of last year European Champion Staffan Lindberg in the final who was beaten by Peter Wibroe, young and agrresive Danish skipper in the semis 2:1. The Grand final was therefore between French PA Morvan and Danish Peter Wibroe. In this best of five game Morvan suffured a bit of bad luck. During 3rd match in the incident where French did not keep clear and got a penalty a collision emerged with camera man deprived of safety lines on the Danish boat. As Morvans opponents were not able to continue racing umpires black flagged the French team and gave the victory in this match to Dans. Furthemore with two boats Toyota and Polsat used in the Grand final it seemed that Polsat was a bit faster and that was the match when it was Morvan's tour to sail on it.. Results of Grand Final were 3:1 for Peter Wibore and in Peti Final 2:0 for Finnish team of Staffan Lindberg.

In terms of umpiring I have to personally say that we had a very decent team. Don't know if all competitors share the same opinion but I prefere not to find out... :) Our Chief was Dutch Karst Hut who brought since the beginning a great atmosphere in the team. Not to mention that it was a team consisting of friends only. Great choice ;) On board we had as well Jurg Kaufmann, guess you know the name :), Pierro Occheto from Italy, Marek Pavlovsky from Czech Republic and 3 Poles: Bogus Moczorodynski, Tomasz Chamera and myself. On the wing we had our 49er competitor Krzysztof Kierkowski who did a very good job while assisting the matches as the wing driver.

Now it is time for the next event. On Friday I start 49er Olympic Cup in my home town Olsztyn where we will practice races in medal race format with 14 teams from 8 countries. Last year that was a big fun so let's see how it'll look like this year..
Cheers
Sofia