Here is a short report on the participation of a Belgian in the European Masters Championships in Tihany.
Months of preparation with 6 hours of physical training per week seemed useless when we looked at windfinder at departure: maximum 4 knots for 4 days… The reality was much better: 5 to 10 knots the first three days under a bright sun. The wind was tricky because of the turns; on Friday we sailed the first race with a westerly wind and the second with an easterly wind!
My goal was to leave a third of the sailors behind me.
The first day was reasonable. In both heats I was at the right (pin) end of the 300m starting line, but my start was too cautious. Fortunately, I was able to overtake many boats thanks to good speed and the (mostly) right blows. 47th place out of 78.
On the second day, I had resolved to start much more aggressively, and it paid off. The second heat was very good, until I got a penalty for body pumping into the wind. I moved up to 40th place on 78.
The third day I was not awake and did not sync the start timer to the 4 minutes so the start was super bad. This became my deduction race. The other motos were good. Moved up to 39th place out of 78 so exactly in the middle, and better than my goal.
This was a fantastic experience. Someone described it as ‘paradise conditions’. Lake Balaton is beautiful, everything was super clean, accommodation and eating out is really not expensive.
Worth repeating!
