First news from the Europeans at Lake Como. After taking some time to arrange the internet connection at the club we finally managed to get the connection. Helen Goodall will do some reports the coming days and i also will try to keep everybody as updated as possible.
The checking of the boats has started Friday and there were some full measurements of boats and the normal checking on weights and sail area from boats who already had the documents fixed before coming over. There were no strange things happening and it looks that the people who are competing know exactly what is needed and how it works. I did take photo’s about the procedure how things should run for future events and there will be guiding put together to explain a lot of things.
All boats did meet to stay inside the weight limit of 104/107 kg, the lightest was 106,3 kg and the heaviest was around 129,8 kg , the rest was between this.
At the moment of this writing not everybody has arrived but we have now 2 aqua Raptors, 2 Blades, 7 Viper , 2 Stealth’s, 3 Falcons , but the are probably more Blades and Vipers coming and 1 or 2 Bim.
The weather is good from Wednesday with temperatures going from 35 C to 42 C with a good thunder storm at Saturday night cooling down the whole bit to normal temperatures like 29 to 32 C. The wind condition where medium winds the last days and the forecast is that there will be medium winds for the whole week.
The Viper teams did bring in a high level of competitors with Bundy, Carolijn and Brett and Jason going for the title. These people are really fast and well trained.
The series starts Monday morning at around 13.00 and I will try to update everybody every evening and this together with pictures.
I will do the resizing of the photo’s so far tonight and put this on the forum.

Best regards,
Hans Klok

Thanks Hans, and good luck to all!

Cheers!

Report on the Formula 16 website

Personal report on our blog

Nice report Gil and good luck. My best to everyone.

The sailors are all preparing themselves for the first heats. The wind is still quite light, but should build.

There are 16 boats registered, with sailors from 7 Countries - UK, France, Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, New Zealand and Australia.

The fleet is very mixed -
5 Uni & 11 Sloop
10 females - (4 at the helm)
Large number of youth (under 20 years.)

Check out the press release on 2B Sailing. Darren and Carolijn are really supporting the sailors of tomorrow, and females in sailing... Well done!!
2B's press release for F16 Euros

I may not get all reports onto this forum, however, I will be attempting to keep the following links up to date:
TWITTER – (AHPC_live)
FACEBOOK – (AHPC (Australian High Performance Catamarans)
WEBSITE – www.ahpc.com.au

And, yes, I will apologies in advance for any AHPC slant on my reporting!!!

Boats have left the beach.

Wind is very light (0 - 5 knots) but is from the southerly direction. So should build. They are predicting 15 knots.

3 races scheduled today.

Thanks Helen.

First race has finished.

I am on the beach and cannot see the racing. Greg is out on one of the official boats and is sending small bits of info back.

Places in first race...
1st - Carolijn & Liz,
2nd - Froukje Feenstra & Bundy,
3rd - Thijs Visser & Diemer Feenstra

+1 !

Wouter

Wouter, do you know any more about the ladies on the first two boats- excluding Bundy of course!

We should promote them, girls are good for the class!

Lara & Sylvia Siccouri are the daughters of a very well known F18 sailor - Pierre.

Pierre purchased one of the very first Vipers into Europe and they are sailing this boat.

Pierre sadly passed away some 18 months ago, but I am sure he would be very proud of his daughters.

Any links to pictures and the like? Anyone? I'll repost to SA.

Full list of competitors below... (Sorry that I cannot complete all the boat types):

GBR 207 ? warren paul & anne powter
AUS 189 VIPER christa van helden & brett goodall
NED 194 VIPER froukje fenstra & darren bundock
NED 193 VIPER this visser & diemer feenstra
ITA 1 ? riccardo ceriani & elia mazzucchi
GBR 8 VIPER chris sproat & jury rosanna
BEL 666 FALCON gill de bruyene & kathleen vandenbulcke
ITA 700 VIPER silvia sicouri & lara sicouri
AUS 192 VIPER jason waterhouse & lisa darmanin
BEL 888 VIPER caroljin brouwer & liz wardley
ITA 111 BLADE federico farina & luca bertani
FRA 515 ? eric noyau
NED 111 AQUARAPTOR hans klok
GBR 555 STEALTH mark pressdee
NZL 202 FALCON daniel todd
NED 1 BLADE geert ruesink

Photos will happen later.... Cameras are on the water.

Any word on Geert? He's gotta get an A for effort.

Second race - Winds have increased to around 10 - 12 knots.
They are coming around the marks faster than Greg can type on his blackberry.

Top mark for the last time:
Aus192 - Jason & Lisa
Ned193 - This & Diemer
Aus194 - Froukje & Bundy

More like an A+. I met him last night, and was very impressed!

Second race is finished... Note these are very UNOFFICIAL results.

Aus192 - Jason & Lisa
Ned193 - This & Diemer
Ita700 - Lara & Sylvia
Aus189 - Christa & Brett
Aus194 - Froukje & Bundy (Capsized. 50m from finish and lost 2 places)
Bel888 - Carolijn & Liz
Ita111 - Federico & Luca
Gbr207 - Paul & Ann
Gbr8 - Chris & Rosanna
Bel666 - Gill & Kathleen
Ita1 - Ricdcardo & Elia

3rd race has started - 14 knots.

At the end 1st lap
193 - This & Diemer,
888 - Carolijn & Liz,
192 - Jason & Lisa,
666 - Gill & Kathleen
189 - Christa & Brett
700 - Silvia & Lara