Name: WASZP - the one design foiler
Brand: WASZP
Price: 11400.00 USD
Availability: InStock
Rating: 4.4 (5 reviews)

European Championships - WASZPs Ready to fly!

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WINNER! Harry Mighell

WASZP European Championships – Preview

From June 28th – July 1st the largest ever fleet of WASZPs will assemble at Lake Garda Italy. The European Championships held at Fraglia Vela Malcesine has been met with a high level of excitement and anticipation by competitors and supporters.

Over 60 WASZPs have entered the event with anticipation high for the most competitive WASZP event held so far. With lots of interest in the Perth 2019 WASZP Games and many teams taking advantage of the sensational conditions on Lake Garda the standard will most certainly be high. 2 Days out from the event we have over 50 boats in the rigging area training and tuning their WASZPs again taking advantage of class creator Andrew McDougalls experience as well as chatting with other sailors about technique and tuning.

The training camp has commenced today with 32 Sailors taking advantage of the coaches from Australia and Norway, this has become a feature of the WASZP class, the genuine willingness to share information and help others is now becoming engrained in the culture. There have been many comments from the genral public of how much stoke is in the rigging area amongst the WASZP sailors. The age demographic is spread with a group of kids aged 13-17, a bunch of sailors coming back into the sport aged 23-35 and a group of masters loving the foiling challenge and the battles within the fleet. This has all created the perfect cocktail of atmosphere amongst the fleet.

This years program will consist of championship racing (up to 3 races per day) and a slalom event that will be run around the championship racing. This will provide the perfect spectacle for the class racing right in front of Fraglia Malcesine and the spectator contingent. The colour the WASZP provides is a fantastic contrast against the water and mountians around Lake Garda.

The European contingent will be led by French sailor Pierre Leboucher a former 470 Olympian, while Marcal Costa racing from Spain is the brother of last years European Champion Joan Costa and no doubt has gained some vital information from his brother. The Norwegian fleet has imporved significantly and have run a very slick campaign, no doubt the kids with another year of WASZP sailing under their belt will be looking to hit the top of the leaderboard. The UK is sporting the greatest number of competitors from a nation with 14 and have many young guns amongst them, as well as many families embracing a week of Italian lifestyle, we look forward to seeing them improve across the week.

Joining the 10 European nations will be 3 Australians and 1 New Zealander who have made the trip to Italy to begin their preperations for Perth 2019. Tom Trotman heads up the Australian charge having placed 3rd at the Aussie Nationals and 4th at the Pacifc Games he has the runs on the board and looking to improve. Jack Abbott having experienced last years WASZP Games at Campione is back again fresh off a 5th placing at the Aussie Nationals, both are keen to test themselves against Europes best and entice their European counterparts to compete in Perth and home waters in 2019. Lastly Bruce Curson has made the trip from New Zealand fresh off winning the New Zealand nationals and a 3rd place at the Pacific Championships he is primed for a good result.

The sub divisions will be well contested, with 24 sailors contesting the youth division of under 18 it will be extremely tight and no doubt the kids are looking for bragging rights over their mates by being the best youth foiler in Europe. Nicolai Jacobsen from Norway will be leading this charge with great performances in the recent WASZP Cup Norway events. 13 Sailors including AMAC will be contesting the master over 40 division and we have 6 Females racing which is sensational for the class and shows how diverse and accessible the class is. The last division will be the 6.9m division which will be hotly contested by around 12-15 sailors showing the future of the WASZP class!

Racing begins on the 28th of June

EVENT ENTRIES