Another consistent placing for us in Poland. Despite beginning the regatta slowly with some average sailing over the first 2 days we managed to flight our way back to salvage some respectability.
Early in the regatta we certainly struggled with the boats. Long, heavy and narrow the Diamant 4000 was extremely difficult to sail especially in the shifty conditions. Our main problem was getting off the start line, however after this were very competitive. We had some good races in the double round robin stage despite some poor starts. Our best race was our first against former Americas Cup sailor Karol Jablonski, in this race we won the start and controlled the race from that point. Following this point we had to scrap for our wins but finished the day 3 wins 4 losses.
On day 2 we started badly loosing three straight races, denting our confidence. However we managed to stem the tide and stringed together two wins at the end of the day including a come from behind win after a double penalty in the race against Simone Ferrarese of Itlay. Going into day 3 we still had a slim chance of making the quarters but results had to go our way. We did everything possible by winning our final three races but this wasn’t enough as our competitors failed to slip up.
It was pleasing to finish the regatta with some momentum and regain some confidence. Our next regatta is in Chicago, USA on one of our favourite boats the Tom 28, so we look forward to this! This event will be closely followed by the Bermuda Gold Cup WMRT event. Stay tuned.
