Great close racing in 75 boat fleet.

Though competition for 9 races, high quality fleet.

The famous Cercle de Nautique La baule, Pornichet et Poulignon  (CNBPP) was the host of the 2008 europeans .

This club of the well known names of Loday and Peyron organised  a very good championship.

Winner Stevie Brewin from Australia sailed a consistent series, winning 3 races . Stevie was sailing a australian 'Tool', (version 2008)  a Saarberg mast and a Brewin  Maxx sail  .

Manuel Calavia (ESP)  had a relatively slow start, but climbed back to 2nd . Luc Du Bois ( SUI)  just managed to hold off Sjoerd Hoekstra ( NED)  for 3rd . Calavia was sailing a Flyer mk2 and a new 2008 Ashby  on a Fiberfoam mast , same mast and sail was used by Du Bois  on his Scheurer generation 5 . Luc showed very good  tactics an had great downwind performances in light to moderate winds .Sjoerd Hoekstra, sailing the same equipment as Brewin had a consistent serie on 4 th Place .

Andrew Landenberger  from AUS sailed his Marstrom MK 5 and a new designed Maxx sail . Landy won 2 races , had some bad luck with a a black flag ,but was happy with 5 in the end . Good prospects  for the next Worlds in Australia .

Quite a surprise was Donald Beike on 6.  Doald was occasionally ´smoking´ the fleet with  heaps of boat speed . Donald sailed  a brand new  Mk2  Egner Flyer and a Landenberger radial.

The talk of the week was without doubt Bob Baier (GER). Bob was going really really well in races 1 and 2  . The first race he was leading big time, but thought he had to go a 4th lap..... oops ...     At the time he  found out he returned and only managed a 53 ....

The 2nd race he won, the 2nd DAY he missed completely due to gear breakage , race no  4 a nd 5 he scored  2 and  1 !

but the next day the magic was gone, finishing  36 and 22 in lighter weather....

overall score in the end :  32.... 

Lots of rumour had to do with  his fancy curved daggerboards on his brand new Nils Bunkenburg designed Nikita  .

The daggerboards were quite extreme under the boat, okay , but  personally i don't think that this made the extraordinary performance.  Bob just sailed really well with his new boat and new Ashby / fiberfoam rig. He  just found a great groove up and downwind in the 12-18 knts range  winds  with some irregular bumpy waves and irregular current on the course.

He  was footing bit faster and lower upwind , and sailing deeper  angles downwind compared to most others ... ( 'Mild thing ? ') .

Far too early to make any judgements on the benefits or not of the banana boards ...

One to watch for next regattas i guess......

The next Nikita anyway went well also :  Thomas Paasch (DEN) sailed it to 7  ( really fast downwind  in the light....).

Top ten was completed by  8) Pieterjan Dwarshuis (NED, flyer mk2 / FF/Glaser), 9) Chris Field (GRB /Tool 2007/Saarberg/Brewin)and 10) Paolo Penco (ITA,Bimare V1/FF/Glaser).

link to Europeans BLOG :  ( in French, but pics are great...): http://cnbpp.over-blog.fr/

Results : http://cnbpp.free.fr/A_class/euroclas0608_s.htm

Video : http://tvmer.fr/