The Euros certainly ended on a real high for most. It must be said that everyone would have learnt loads from the week and come away with a huge amount of valuable experience.

Now safely back home it’s time to recap on some of the highlights…

After my last post, I am pleased to say that having taken on board loads of advice about gybing, it finally clicked in to place and I think I have enough to build on. My goal will be to be able to do it on demand and also translate it to high winds as well.

The last day dawned with blue skies again which normally means ballistic winds at Silvaplana however (thankfully) this never really happened and instead we were treated to a much calmer 12- 15 knots and flat water.

We got two races in which would decide the overall winners and also give the entire fleet a chance to put in to practice all that was learned during the week.

I had two good races with the last one being the best of the event for me. Very few failed gybes and an absolute steaming start thanks to the general recall and black flag rule (it meant that most were a little reluctant to push)

It’s an awsome feeling to be ahead of some of the biggest names up the first beat! As expected it didn’t last long as the top guys assumed their correct placings and regained control of the race. Unbelievably, if you drop a gybe nowadays at a european event, you can lose 30 places as I found out.

In the end I finished with a 43rd and 55th overall which meant the world to me! I was mostly pleased that my boat proved itself in the nuclear winds with nothing more than a couple of ropes to replace and a few mods to be done.

I’m also really pleased with how the boat is now set up thanks to a load of help from Kevin, she is riding consistently at the mach2 esque heights (about 350 – 400mm of foil in the water) and in control which really helps with the foil tacking.

When I started this blog I remember saying that the future was here in the fact that the class was making a quantum leap forward. Having experienced an event like the euros first hand, I stand by my views.

The media interest is at a new level and is attracting more and more superstars to the class. I’ve never seen so many celeb sailors in one place at one time!

What was really interesting was the fact that this year there was no more “camp epoxy”. Mine never came out of the box and pretty much everyone had only small breakages and nothing terminal. This is a HUGE difference to events in the past and is a sign that the boat is starting to reach a welcome level of reliability.

Standards continue to improve and foiling tacks are becoming a staple requirement like foil gybes. I was able to gain 150 metres upwind on a fellow competitor in one successful foil tack and by the end of the beat was ahead by nearly half a leg.

As mentioned before, gybing has to be nailed everytime or it costs dearly.

I met some really nice people during the week, Constantijn, Per and others to name but a few! Doug Culnane is actually pretty damned good and I think he is a little harsh on himself and doesn’t realise how good he actually is (he kicked my arse and also took top spot for the homebuilds!)

Amazingly there was only two real crashes with the potential to be disasterous, the first one involved Tim Penfold and the second involved Tom Offer. I guess it was inevitable when you see the size of the lake coupled with the number of boats. I certainly developed whole new level of spacial awareness and it helped train you to “get you head out of the boat”.

The Brits put in a solid performance overall but there is again a new level of commitment required to get to the next level. Sheer boat speed just doesn’t cut it anymore.

It was an amazing experience to be amongst the best in the world and a great inspiration to see them in action.

Congratulations also to Simon who has now completed the hat trick and is Current World, European and National Champion! How nuts is that?

Next stop for me is Hayling Island Tide ride (with a few trips over there and Stokes Bay beforehand no doubt.)