October 7th, 1st practice day:

Racing and Jury office:

Brad gibson was among the first to set up his boat.

October 8th, 2nd practice day

Towards the end of the second practice day there were many boats on the water.

Middle nr.2 rig weather. Possibly the most wind we had all week.

Boat storage was in containers.
My boat (FIN 136) with Soren Andresen's (DEN 123)
GER, FIN, DEN and NOR shared one container.

The grand-stand !

October 9th, 1st Racing day

Racing area "B"

Brad Gibson (142) wins the start at the closer starting mark...

and tacks to get the lift off the bank..

For some reason we sailed a course to starboard for the first few days...

Brad is in the same position again

However Franco Borim (81) looks good in the middle of the line !

Guilermo Beltri (47) wins the fight for the "hot-spot" in the start

and he was never caught again when he tacked for the lift off the bank...

47 leads "by a mile"

October 10th, 2nd Racing day

October 12th, 4th racing day:

can you tell who is going to win ?

right here is where I think Peter Stollery (39) wins the race...

39 is the first onto port...

rounds first

and leads confortably by the leeward mark

October 14th, 5th racing day

Judges.

The starboard tack parade to the top mark.

October 16th, last day

waiting for wind...

on the last two days we waited for wind around 3 hours...
The town of arcos.

boats, hats etc. was for sale by the end of the week...

Some of the top skippers

European Champion Graham Bantock, GBR, Topiko

2nd, Peter Stollery, GBR, Isotonic

3rd, Franco Borim, ITA, Ikon

4th, Michael Scharmer, GER, Scharming

5th Torvald Klem, NOR, Cockatoo

Boats and equipment

Ken Binks demonstrating the new battery tester/discharger from Futaba.

Hitech Arm-winch with programmer.

the new ball-raced jib-boom fitting for round booms from Sails ETC

Torvalds boat.

A strange looking french boat that went really well

A wheel fitted to the hitech servo of a portuguese boat. Graham Bantock also sailed with this kind of arrangement but I did not get any pictures of the inside of his boat.

Sören Andresen had an interesting sheeting arrangement where the main and jibsheet travel are unequal. The red elastic is actually the "control line" as required by the rules.

Here you can see how it works.

The sheets are attached to the same point of the arm but to different points on the beam. Due to the geometry this gives unequal travel for main and jib.

Jeff Byerley's Cockatoo.

Note mainsail attached to mast with jackstay.

Micheal Scharmer's Scharming design. Almost completely homemade. Wooden masts and homemade sails !

The appendages are scaled down versions of what was used on the Illbruck V60

Michael uses a maximum weight rudder. He had weighed it several times at home but in Spain it was sill overweight ?? hence he had to sand a little off it...

"Technology Transfer"

The winning boat. Graham Bantocks new design called Topiko.

Note hull sanded with fine grit below waterline to reduce friction.


The new design of the transom.