Monday 27 July 2015

Baltic Cup Liepaja




Aloha,
last weekend I participated in the last event of 2015 Baltic Cup in Latvia, Liepaja. In 3 days we had 8 races in total in challenging to very challenging, to crazy conditions.
On the first day we had an 18-22 knots straight onshore wind with waves up to 2,5m. The judges decided to wait a bit for the waves to go down and only gave a start in the afternoon when the swell was only up to 2m out in the sea. I was going quite fast on my 10.7 and later 11.5, but I just kept on messing up the start terribly. Therefore, I finished 10th, 8th and 11th. I was super disappointed by my performance as I knew I could have done way better. 





On the second day of racing we had side off shore wind reaching up to 24 knots at the last race. I used 11,5 for the first 3 races and 10,7 for the last one. I was making much less mistakes today and finished 5th, 2nd and 3rd. Unfortunately I got DSQ in the race where I placed 2nd. I was going on port tack on the start with 10 other guys, at least half of us participated in a big mess which resulted in 25% of the fleet falling down :) (no damaged equipment) and I was the only one who got protested (I guess the blamed me because I was the biggest and they spotted me easily lol). I did the penalty turn, but the jury decided that it was not soon enough.

Last day of racing greeted us with strong winds and huge side on shore swell (2.5m on the sets). When they started the formula race the wind was 24 knots and it increased over the course of the race. Unfortunately, on Friday when I looked at the forecast I thought that it will be to dangerous to go on Sunday, therefore I registered 12.5 , 11.5 and 10.7 :) So I went out on 10.7. I was going in 3rd place up to the middle of the second lap, when it just got out of hand. The waves were huge, wind was gusting close to 30 knots I believe and my tank was empty. I started dropping the sale on every turn and got overtaken by 4 guys and finished in 8th place. Only 15th guys managed to finsih the race and keep in mind that everyone was on 10.o or smaller sails. Thus all in all, I came 8th - not the best result but not tragic as well.
My buddy Arnas was ripping in Slalom every single day and after the competition was finished we went wave sailing. Yep - wave sailing in the same spot we were going on Formula just an hour ago :)
Check out all the pics by Ivo Blums





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