F18 Europeans 2018 @Costa Brava: Paschalidis & Trigonis, Champs

Photo : Marc Gonzalez Alóma. Waiting for Day 5 images. Check previous days albums at Sailing Alegre fb  –  F18 Europeans 2018 have concluded today Thursday July 5 after a week of perfect sailign conditions offered by the famous Spanish “Costa Brava”.  A solid victory by Danny Paschalidis & Kostas Trigonis sailing a Scorpion equipped with 1D sails. It was a laborious triumph, brilliantly executed by two experienced former Olympic Tornado sailors.
The Greeks didn’t scored above 5th in the entire regatta but race 14, where the three leaders were caught in a bad position, Burvill-Puttman with an OCS and Danny-Kostas along Mitch & Ruben Booth scoring +20s on a tricky race 13. Not the lucky one for them surely enough.

On the following race (R14)  the official Red Bull  team finished once more below 5th, with a 4th place to secure the title , one race to spare.
A deserved victory for a crew the F18 Class has received with a smile two years ago, they are now part of the F18 family as they continue to be of their beloved Tornado.
It shows both are great guys and I know on direct feedback from Arg sailors and others to be the case.
Congrats to both on the good vibes and top notch performance.

Aussie Power
Brett Burvill & Max Puttman pressed hard in the breeze at Costa Brava, yesterday they grabbed their bullet of the event on the last race of the day held in +20knots. Today wind increased too and the Aussies scored twoo more bullets, plus an ocs,  showing their determination and raw performance of a team sailing a 100% Australian designed and built Formula 18. The Windrush Edge equipped with Next Gen sails were built by Burvill and Puttman respectively.

Once more the beauty and core of the F18 box rule demonstrating how well the Formula and framework works for not depending on monopolies and rigged prices.

The Australians finished second overall putting the DownUnder level in high perspective.

Belgian Young Guns
After the final race, the  third place overall for the vent belonged to Belgian Young Guns, Henri
Demesmaeker & Morgan Wirtz (C2 / Goodall DS), who also showed their drive finishing with 3 consecutive second places getting ahead of Mitch & Ruben Booth.

But once on land a protest came in, seems Henri & Morgan were sailing close to Mitch & Ruben Booth in the last race, 3rd place was at stake. The info I have is that the Belgians tack away from the Booths but encountered Burvill-Puttman who were on starboard tack, the Aussies had to luff hard and Henri hit their boat, but without much or any equioment consequence, still it was a maneuver under pressure for the young guns and the protest was granted against the Belgian crew.

Imagine sailing the final race for the podium against two long time experienced sailors (one of them being one of the greatest catsailors ever), it was a high pressure situation and the kids got caught by “two old foxes” as someone wisely told me today from Costa Brava..hehe.

Is fair to say though, the kids took their chances, look last photo above, a Port start in the breeze is a bold move without a doubt. Still Henri & Morgan performance was impressive, It was a 5th overall for them, but it is annecdotic, they race to podium level, including 3 bullets. We’ve been following Henri’s career for years but we were waiting a breakthrough performance in the major leagues and I think this was his first one.
Although he grabbed an incredible F16 Worlds along Jeroen van Leeuwen in the past, plus a recent World title in Nacra 15 this year,   in my view this F18 Europeans sailing with Morgan was the real a breaktrhough. Congrats to both youths and we hope they can attend Sarasota Worlds in October along dad Patrick and Gilles Tas.
Henri will come to BA later this year for the Youth Olympics on Nacra 15s.

Legend & Sons II
For 2015 Worlds we wrote an article about Mitch and his sons, and this year it was deja vu all over again for the Booth family.
Eurpeand 2018 third place overall went for above mentioned Legend, Mitch Booth and his son Ruben sailing also a Scorpion & 1D sails.
If we have Ashby , Bundock, Mischa  as some of the greatest catsailors ever, Mitch Booth is simply above them all! Mitch is the only one holding a World Title in F18, Tornado & A-Class as helm , plus two Olympic medals in Tornado, plus the invention of the Tornado Sport (spi) plus the X40s and the list goes on.

Mitch is lucky enough having passed his passion for cats to his three kids. At Costa Brava Dad sailed with Ruben, and Jordi with Joan Costa. A 3rd and 9th overall plus bullets each, that was the excellent perf by the Booth family. With Taylor Mitch grabbed line honours for at Texel 2011.
The Booths will attend Sarasota Worlds 2018, so this was just a warm up for them.

Top Ten
The rest of the top ten all with a story too, Orion Martin & Charles Gaté , which we also place as candidates finished in 4th overall with a late attack on the last 6 races. the former F18 French Nat champs sailing a Cirrus R2 & Northrop DS by Simon Northtrop sailed a second half for podium.

6th overall for Patrick Demesmaeker & Gilles Tas, Europeans champs and vice 2017 World Champs, praised them plenty in the past and they continue to perform on their C2 / Goodall DS.

7th for Lolo Bianchini & Valentino Rigatti, they started sailing the Scorpion / 1D DS this year, a recent win in Italy marked a path to this event, and they didn’t disappointed.

8th for a great F18 crew, Gianni Fantasia & Davide Recalcati (C2/ Landenberger DS) , the Italian crews were on fire at Costa Brava. Gianni has been holding office too at the Italian F18 Assoc for years and will host the 2019 Worlds at Grossetto, Tuscany. Don’t miss that event.

9th for Jordi Booth & Joan Costa (Scorpion /1D) , the Spanish crew put pedal to metal in the breeze, scoring a bullet in race 10, and holding ground to stay in the top 10. Great event for them too, and bright future for sure for the local Spanish F18.

10th place for Hans & Marius van Dam (C2 / Goodall DS) , the Dutch crew had tremendous first halve of the event, bullet included and lay down a bit later, but enough for a top ten. One of the dark horses surely, and Marius showing us how to crew at any stage of your like at top level.

Our good friend Simon Northrop sailing with Caleb Cooper (Windrush Edge / Northrop DS) finishing in 11th place. They had a low start but got focused in the last races, pushing in the breeze, as Simon likes best. Simon equips the factory Cirrus R2s, and his DS proved to be super fast with Martin-Gaté grabbing 4th overall.

12th place IF18CA Gral Sec, Ad Noordzij sailing with his son Maarten (Cirrus/Mischa Sail DS boom), the Dutch crew finished the event with a 3rd place in the last race. Great to have a gral Sec sailing and racing, which is mandatory nowadays for someone in charge of executives decisions.
Finally 13th overall for Manu & Jean boulogne, another Father & Son crew. Manu is a former World Champ and worker supreme for the F18 Class since its early days. Always good to see him sailing and having fun with his family.

Costa Brava , Ballena Alegre
Great venue, Champagne sailing the entire week, quick results online, first class images by Marc Gonzalez Alóma, you can’t ask for more to the Spanish F18 Association.
Congrats to the organizers and Class members for such a good Championship. The Class should come back here for more.
Olivier  Bovyn, IF18CA president was handy this time around twitting race updates and keeping results and conditions. Good job.
I think when major events resolves Photography the Class might want to help with GPS live tracking, Live video would just incredible but daily basis and full races are not going to be cheap.

F18 hardcore Builders/Lofts
So glad seeing Danny & Kostas winning on the Scorpion, along Booths and others performance.
A project not many thought it will become this far. Last year I received several comments saying, “well Mischa & Stephan won the 2017 Title on their unique DS”…  But at Costa Brava almost the entire top 20 were on the DS sail, so there you have it once more.
In the end Jakub Kopylowicz / Exploder has put together another winning alternative for F18 sailors World Wide to race and enjoy and at lower costs.

On sails , Marton Balazs has taken the legacy of the legendary Ullman GZ loft further , delivering top notch sails developed by top riders and basically investing hard in the F18 like Goodall Design continues to do so. The  C2s also put 4 teams inside the top ten, and were 5 or more at one stage of the championship. Add to the usual quality of the Goodalls the onsite support and Brett Goodall delivering Live drone video..! What else do you need from your F18 provider?
Brett and Laurent Verbeck are also preparing a container of charters for Sarasota. Contact them at www.goodalldesign.net

The F18 is made first by its builders dedicating their lives to deliver F18s for us to race, like  Manu Boulogne / Cirrus , who have build a quality reputation as few in the industry,  Burvill and his Windrush Edge also Simon Northtrop and Felix Egner/Landy lofts,  plus all other the builders and lofts pushing the F18 ahead to a bright future.

Along the great F18 Class members community of course.

Next major F18 event will be Sarasota Worlds in Florida, register and book your tickect asap . Info on the event available at www.2018f18worlds.com

the Booths , Paschalidis-Trigonis, Mischa & Stephan, Gunnar & Fer will be there so it will be another great F18 championship.

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Below top ten , Full results after 15 races here
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– Update R15, another bullet for the Aussies, Greeks didn’t start as title was on their pockets. Henri seems to be getting a DSQ sadly. Final results when posted and confirmed.

1 Burvill-Puttman
2 Henri -Wirtz
3 Mitch & Ruben Booth
4 Noordzij-Noordzij
5 Martin-Gaté

– Update R14: Seems Greeks have secured the Title with one race pending only.
1 Burvill-Puttman
2 Henri-Wirtz
3 Martin-Gaté
4 Danny-Kostas
5 Northtrop-Cooper

– Race 13 held in light winds but increasing, Race 14 being held in 14knts as reported by Olivier Bovyn

R13 was not the lucky one for the 3 leaders! Lucky enough though the second discard just entered the game.

Race 13 prov:
1 Martin-Gaté
2 Henri-Wirzt
3 Patrick-Tas
4 Fantsia-Recalcati
5 Bianchini-Rigatti

23 Danny-Kostas
OCS Brett-Max
28 Mitch-Ruben Booth

Later report , images when available, plus equipment details.