F18 Europeans 2022: Ravi Parent & Severin Gramm crowned Champs

Photo by Emilio Santinelli / Circolo Vela Arco. Complete gallery here. Later updated ones when available.

F18 Europeans 2022 has ended today at Circolo Vela Arco, Torbole, Lake Garda. Super competitive event as expected, Title definition only in the last race and plus some additional nerves on a possible 13th race that couldn’t be started after hours of waiting for wind.
Many thanks to Panka & Marton Balazs and the 1D Loft on the Live updates provided from the water, their data was posted live each day in our Twitter account.

Ravi Parent & Severin Gramm won the 2022 European Crown not on raw bullets but on consistent top 3 results. Quite an achievement for the young US crew, specially at Garda where the course between the giant rock walls can be somehow predicted (many starting port just to have the right side to windward mark) but not its sudden lulls or even unexpected direction changes, as happened in R4.

A testament of Ravi Parent top notch present, after winning the A-Cat Worlds couple of months ago.
For this Regatta at Garda, when the Class divided the fleet for R1, I told them to beware on getting Ravi and for ie Booth in the same fleet, just to acknowledge Ravi & Severin were clear favorites.

And well, they performed Plenty! Winning their first F18 major event outside US. Ravi already showed he was in top form in the F18 back in 2021, grabbing the F18 North Ams over Argies Gonzalez Smith & Heuser, who were #2nd at Gaeta Worlds.

Later he obtaining the A-Cat 2022 World Title at Houston ahead of Brewin, Bundock , Suroviec & Gibbs, was a demonstration of power.

Next big event will be the 2022 F18 Worlds to be held in September in Clearwater, FL. Parent will aim to achieve one elusive special double Crown, which is winning an A-Cat & F18 Title (Only Mitch Booth in ACat Floating mode, and Mischa Heemskerk (both modes) have them in their shelves.

The Triple Crown would be winning the current Nacra 17 Olympic Gold Medal, and is clear the kid we’ve following for years, might the first one to achieve that Ultimate goal. Former Triple Crow was F18, Olympic Tornado and A, that none has won the three of them to my knowledge.

Flying Aussies
At Garda Europeans Regatta, the second overall was for the Flying Aussies, Brett Burvill & Max Puttman (Windrush Edge / Nxt Gen Sails) scored 5 bullets and were leading after 11 races. Today with less wind, their chances were reduced a bit, but still it was an enormous performance by them. In 2019 Worlds the finished 5th and couldn’t attend 2021 at Gaeta on the known Aus travel restrictions.

Even for Garda Brett sent an Edge container from home that for whatever reason did not arrived on time for this Europeans, but the EU Edge fleet went to the rescue getting them spare Edges for the to compete.

Lets see if they can also attend 2022 Worlds, established as top F18 crew would be nice to have them aiming for the Title at Clearwater.

Endless Performer
Third place overall for Patrik Demesmaeker & Gilles Tas on their blue Goodall Akurra. Patrik has been racing F18 since day one, and his performance has never diminished with time, on the contrary. He is like the Godfather of the European fleet, a nice big bloke all like, but a fierce competitor on the water along Gilles.

For the rest of the top ten Bader&Bjomjolt (Nacra Evo) confirmed their German Nats speed, and the Scorpion Team was relegated this time with Booth-Booth in 5th , Gonzalez Smith-Heuser 6th, Krevisky-Benitez as reported mast down yesterday, and Norregaard-Jarvinen not racing yesterday or today

F18 Formula Class
The F18 Class showing once more a leveled field in terms of platforms and brands, and in the end how you sail will define your final position, sailing any of the current proven F18s available.

On the brands fight, Nacra & Performance Sails finally score a major event (Worlds/Euros) win since 2015 when Gunnar Larsen & Fer van West won that year’s WC onboard the legendary Nacra Infusion MKII. An Infusion MKIII versionand lately the Evo , following the Scorpion tracks were developed since then.

Still we have pending the 2022 Worlds & Constructors Title, but we think the local US sailors will prevail sailing Evos & Akurras, possibly ending the 4X consecutive World Title Crown for our Scorpion built by Exploder.

Parent will be definitely hunting his first F18 World Crown on his Nacra Evolution, designed by the Nr1 Multihull Design studio Morrelli & Melvin (where he works as an Engineer) equipped by Peter Vink “Performance Sails”.-

Top Ten platforms 2022 F18 Europeans table, below official Results PDF