Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield retain European title

Paul Brotherton reports from the final day at the 470 Europeans in Poland

Nick Rogers and Joe Glanfield start their campaign for Beijing as they finished their campaign for Athens as European Champions. Beaten overall by the Argentinean team still did not take any of the shine off winning the title.

With racing being prematurely ended at 13.00 a full two hours before an official start could have been made there was no change to the overnight positions. The race team have in fairness had a good week in tricky conditions. However, their clear intention was to avoid racing if they could. Generally, there is an assumption that racing in light winds on last days is a bad thing. Certainly with the current information about Beijing, sailors would probably prefer the chance to practise, important, high pressure racing in less than four knots.

The French womens team won this event with some confidence and must be encouraged by their strong wind form, especially as the Worlds in August will be raced out of the St Francis Yacht Club in San Francisco, a venue noted for its consistent medium to strong wind summer breezes.

An interesting aside to the on-the-water action was a meeting arranged by the International Class Association to discuss the ISAF proposal to simplify and increase the excitement of last day racing for the viewing public. My perception before the meeting was that the athletes, who are about to make sacrifices and commitments for the next four years, would resist attempts to change the current format. This format, for all its faults, rewards the most consistent sailors over a series of races and conditions.

My perception was wrong; nearly all the sailors and coaches present were in favour of changing the existing format in favour of last day “dash finals”. With shorter racing, on-the-water judging and a clear understandable format……sort of.

Mid way through the explanation of how the finals system worked at the Holland regatta, I was both bored and confused.

The system as I understand it goes like this: Normal racing. At the end of the series, the top six go to a semi final, at this stage the winner and the runner up are given two and one bonus points respectively. Semi-finals are held on a short ten minute course with all six boats. The last boat gets eliminated unless you have a bonus point in which case no one is eliminated. When a bonus point holder loses a race he loses a bonus point. When down to the final three, the winner wins, unless you have someone who did not win who still has a bonus point, in which case they lose the bonus point and you race again until either a team with a bonus point wins or all the boats have no bonus points and then finally the winner wins. Confused?

It seems that in attempt to have the best of both worlds, i.e. reward the teams with the best series and give them for want of a better expression more lifelines, the waters are being mudied. Surely, we either need to continue with the same tried and tested system and accept it for what it is. Or we need to have a simple first over the line winner in a one race final.

Results

Men

Pos	Sail No	Helm/Crew	Net	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10	R11	R12
1	ARG 70	Javier Conte, Juan de la Fuente	28,0	1	5	2	2	1	1	-6	5	-8	5	3	3
2	GBR 817	Nick Rogers, Joe Glanfield	36,0	1	1	1	2	1	1	9	-14	5	14	-25	1
3	ISR 7	Gideon Kliger, Ehud Gal	39,0	6	2	2	1	2	9	2	4	-14	-13	5	6
4	NED 1	Sven Coster, Kalle Coster	47,0	3	4	1	1	4	4	-18	-23	2	2	14	12
5	FRA 2651	Benjamin Bonnaud, Romain Bonnaud	49,0	2	3	4	(dsq)	1	9	1	6	-19	9	6	8
6	POR 22	Alvaro Marinho, Miguel Nunes	54,0	1	1	6	2	3	5	(raf)	(ocs)	20	4	2	10
7	GRE 131	Andreas Kosmatopoulos, Andreas Papadopoulos	54,0	8	-12	3	3	5	7	7	2	4	7	8	-13
8	GBR 816	Nic Asher, Elliott Willis	56,0	4	4	5	10	9	6	3	-11	10	3	-24	2
9	ITA 2	Gabrio Zandona, Della Torre	60,0	3	2	(dsq)	3	7	8	4	8	6	8	-17	11
10	FRA 2574	Ronan Dreano, Ronan Floch	65,0	4	6	5	1	2	4	5	-22	13	12	13	-22
11	ARG 61	Matias Buhler, Marcos Lamas	70,0	7	8	10	3	5	2	10	-12	7	11	7	-21
12	GER 4931	Lucas Zellmer, Heiko Seelig	72,0	7	7	1	5	5	13	12	-15	12	6	4	-19
13	RUS 8	Berezkin Dmitry, Zybin Alexander	75,0	7	10	5	4	4	7	11	13	-24	-15	10	4
14	IRL 66	Gerald Owens, Ross Killian	88,0	15	3	9	10	15	3	8	10	-17	10	-16	5
15	ESP 1869	Sanchez Francisco, Ramos Alejandro	89,0	8	6	10	4	(ocs)	16	19	3	21	1	1	-25

Women

Pos	Sail No	Helm/Crew	Net	R1	R2	R3	R4	R5	R6	R7	R8	R9	R10	R11	R12
1	FRA 2644	Ingrid Petitjean, Nadege Douroux	22,0	1	1	1	2	1	5	2	6	2	-7	-11	1
2	ISR 10	Nike Kornecki, Vered Bouskila	27,0	-15	2	4	1	3	2	5	2	3	1	4	-9
3	SWE 323	Therese Torgersson, Vendela Zachrisson	43,0	2	3	3	2	4	10	6	(bfd)	4	5	-16	4
4	SLO 142	Vesna Dekleva, Klara Maucec	48,0	7	4	2	7	2	7	13	3	1	-21	(ocs)	2
5	NED 11	Marcellien de Koning, Lobke Berkhout	49,0	-14	1	1	1	1	6	7	13	-17	6	10	3
6	AUS 357	Elise Rechichi, Tessa Parkinson	53,0	2	3	-17	4	6	3	8	1	8	9	9	-19
7	POL 55	Katarzyna Tylinska, Zuzanna Gladysz	53,0	4	2	2	6	3	7	-14	8	-14	4	3	14
8	GBR 824	Pippa Wilson, Sheena Craig	58,0	3	7	5	7	2	8	1	10	-11	-11	8	7
9	GBR 813	Christina Bassadone, Saskia Clark	58,0	5	(dsq)	7	8	5	5	4	(bfd)	9	3	2	10
10	GER 4918	Stefanie Rothweiler, Vivien Kussatz	60,0	6	5	6	4	4	3	10	7	5	10	-15	-13
11	FRA 2635	Camille Lecointre, Gwendolyn Lemaitre	75,0	8	8	8	3	7	1	-18	4	16	15	-20	5
12	GER 4951	Kathrin Kadelbach, Saskia Schroder	75,0	4	6	3	10	8	4	11	-16	10	13	-21	6
13	NOR 6	Siren Sundby, Karianne Melleby	80,0	1	(dnf)	(dnf)	12	6	1	3	9	6	19	12	11
14	AUT 431	Sylvia Vogl, Carolina Flatscher	85,0	(dnf)	5	4	5	7	2	(dsq)	12	13	2	13	22
15	GER 4954	Sabine Walter, Antje Struckat	91,0	8	14	9	5	8	6	15	5	-21	-20	5	16