24 teams from 16 European nations take out to the water for the 2010 EUROSAF European Match Race Championship

Thursday, 13 May 2010 14:03 GMT+3

Twenty four teams representing sixteen European nations took to the water to participate in 2010 EUROSAF European Match Race Championship.

Lucy Macgregor, the world’s top woman match racer, comes to Austria with a clear goal, to repeat her 2008 victory. After reaching the top of the world match racing rankings in February, MacGregor and her crew will have to prove they have what it takes to clinch the European Champion title and climb another step on their way to the first Olympic gold medal in match racing two years from now in their home country. According to MacGregor, anything can happen under the tough and shifty conditions in Hard.

It was a tough and tricky opening day on Lake Constance (Austria) for all 24 teams that take part in the 2010 EUROSAF European Match Race Championship. A light and changing breeze kept the crews and organizers on their toes.

The two race committees had a full plate with 30 matches each, divided into two groups. Women sailed inside the Binnenbecken inner lake while the race course for the Open division was set on Lake Constance. Conditions were typical of European lakes and the crews that played the shifts and kept in sync with them had a clear advantage.

Women

In Group A of the Women division the undisputed leader was Ekaterina Skudina from Russia with five bullets. Despite the fact Skudina and her crew have been sailing together for less than a year, the years of training on Pirogovo lake on the outskirts of Moscow bore their fruit. According to Skudina, conditions on the Binnenbecken lake are very similar to the ones in her hometown, so the light winds and shifts they experienced today were a familiar pattern. Although thousands of kilometers away from home, Skudina and her crew capitalized on the very similar conditions found on the lakes around Moscow.

Full details: http://www.eurosaf.org/