Nordic & Finnish Championship Report
From Tomi Hakola of Pohjola-Fonecta Finder FIN-573 in Finland - Waiting, waiting and waiting was the name of the game in Mariehamn during the Open Nordic and Finnish Championships, 28.-30.7.
First day of the championships was no racing due to the lack of wind. On Saturday the picture was luckily a bit different. The fleet got 4 races sailed. We sailed ok(4,5,4) except the last race of the day in which we placed 11th... After day 2 we were 6th overall with the same points as the 4th and 5th boat. It looked the we had a good chance of climbing to 4th after day 3. The first race of day 3 was scheduled at 11.00 but suprise suprise there was NO wind for 3½ hours. At 14.45 (only 15 minutes before the deadline) the race committee got the fleet on the way. The wind was really light coming in from SW. The starting line wasn´t straight which meant the pin end was really good. Staffan Lindberg helming FIN434 got a excellent port start in front of everyone. EST 476 got of second and we 3rd. The first beat, downwind leg and the second beat was really close racing with everyone. During the second downwind leg the wind started picking up from the behind bringing the pack close to us and EST 476. At the time we were only 1 boat length away from EST 476. Besides us everyone were on starboard and we gybed out to port first getting everyone else also gybing. Us gybing first and getting directly to the leeward mark meant the EST 476 were under us and in dirty air. They fell back and we climbed to 2nd place and kept this place after rounding the leeward mark and beating up to the finishing line. Behind of us the pack got mixed up, f.ex. Röjning SWE 508 was 3rd overall after day 2 finished 9th etc. which meant that we got the BRONZE!
So after 5 races out of 8 scheduled races we got the BRONZE from the Nordic and Finnish Championship. Gold to Tönu Töniste & co.(EST-646) and silver to Sami Ekblad & co(FIN-529).