KYC Regatta Reports

2025-05-29 Shark Worlds Bronze Medal

2025 SHARK WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS AUSTRIA REPORT.   May 10-16

 

Josh, Peter and Matt with their 3rd place finish, trophies and bottle of local white wine.

The Shark World Championships are held in Europe every 3rd year.  And 2025 Austria was home to the Regatta.   The regatta was held on Lake Traunsee and the town we sailed from was in the northern part of the lake called Altmündsee.

We arranged for an Air B&B that was a 500m walk to the yacht club called Segelclub Altmünster.   The grocery store almost in our backyard was a 200m walk and finally, we had a 150m walk to Pizzeria Valentio. (great pizza, pasta and soups and salads)  We had it made!   Matt frequently did a dash over to the grocery store before anyone got up in the morning and grabbed fresh bread, meats and cheese for our lunches and also breakfast food for the morning. Josh stepped up to make our sandwiches and they were almost as good as Lana's. (I hope Josh doesn't read this)

Registration and Measurement started May 10th where a full team of World Sailing Measurers measured sails.   1 main, 2 Genoas and a Jib, plus 2 spinnakers were measured.  38 Boats attended making roughly 228 sails to measure. It took the full day from 0900 to 1900 to get them done.   My hats off to the team for doing this.

Photo of the mountain looking south where we sailed the regatta.  If you look closely,  you can see the snow on the top of the mountain after the cell went through the area.

On the 11th the Measurement Committee weighed a pre-selected number of boats and our boat was in the queue.  All went well.   Also, the committee checked all boats for their required equipment onboard, according to class rules.    Once all were ready, the practice race was raced in the afternoon.   This is usually done for both the competitors and the race committee and it used to be, some boats that did well in the practice race didn't cross the finish line fearing they would jinx their next races.   So a trophy was made, The Metzger Trophy,   and the winner of this trophy needed to finish the practice, long distance and last race of the regatta to qualify for the trophy.  That made everyone finish the practice race and the last race of the regatta.   Opening ceremonies were at the end of the day and the regatta was open. 

There were a total of 11 Canadian teams representing Canada.  It was a chore to get this many loaner boats for our Canadian teams.  How this works for the Canadian team is,  if one does any upgrades to the boat, it is encouraged to leave the upgrade with the boat.  The insurance too is supplied by the owner.   No money is exchanged.    The same happens in Canada when the Europeans come to race here.  It is a great way to keep the cost down and one of the reasons the Shark Class is so popular.   Normally in other fleets,  one needs to charter a boat  and I'm told that this can get costly.

The water looks cold and it was but it didn't stop Josh and Matt from taking a dip.   They'll tell you how cold it was.

The regatta was run well with only the committee boat and pin boat anchored to the bottom.   All the other marks were bots.   The regatta committee would launch the marks from just north of the club and each morning you could see them travelling to their station.   Once the marks were in place, the committee could adjust each mark via GPS coordinates and away they went to their next location, if needed.

After ten races sailed, including the practice race, we managed to hold on to our 3rd place finish overall and bragging rights for being top Canadian boat.  

 I want to thank both Matt and Josh for taking the time off work for this regatta.  Both have big demands on their time with work and I appreciate all you do to make this happen.

As you can see, Matt and I are wearing our Toques.