A-Class Europeans 2012: Brad Collet’s review

Brad had really bad luck on a hit, after winning two races the previous day. A pity as it would have been an interesting match for the crown with Landy and Chris.
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Report by Brad Collet .Sent by Dominik Scheurer
“I arrived 2 days before the even not having any expectation on doing as well as I did as I have not sailed an A Class since Christmas. Lake Garda has been a dream of mine to sail for a long time & when Andy &
Dominik from Scheurer offered me a boat to sail I could not resist. Landenberger sails & FiberFoam supplied me with an extremely fast rig, & I thank them all for this opportunity.

Prior to the stat of the Euros I managed to sail for a few hours to get on the pace. Going into the first race I was not to sure how I was going but new to be up the front you had to have good speed. You had to get good starts & hit the cliffs to get the good breeze.
There were a lot of soft patches all over the course so you had to make sure you stayed on the outside lanes. Every race the boat was getting faster & faster & before to long I was one of the fastest boats on the course getting good starts & getting clean air was the key. You had to find a good line on the start, tack on to port & hit the Cliff fast.

I would have liked to finish sailing all the races but I had a massive collision before the start of the 7th race causing me to retire from the series. My over view was Trapezing downwind payed off when the wind was in but often you had to sit in & go deep I made all my ground downwind being able to power up early & also being able to drive the boat hard keeping the bows out while most were going in. It is good to see all the hard work Scheurer has done to make a boat so easy to set up & sail fast in all conditions, well done!”

Brad Collett AUS-10