Dopo la giornata dedicata alle registrazioni, oggi primo giorno di gara ma niente vento.
Andrea Ferin dal campo gara: “Anche oggi nulla di fatto, un po’ piu’ di vento, si faceva qualche planatina ma non si riusciva a regatare troppo rafficato nella baia. Domani mattina partiamo alle 8:00 dalla tenda degli atleti e andiamo con tutta l’attrezzatura impachettata in un’altro spot ! Sarà un delirio; poi la sera dovremo reimpachettare tutto e tornare indietro…”
Ruben Petrise ci racconta le prime due giornate aspettando l’azione per questo importante banco di prova del elite mondiale dello Slalom.
IFCA Slalom World Championships Azores 2014 / Day 1
The Opening Ceremony took place yesterday evening on the event site with some nice BBQ and music. A welcome word from the Mayor’s representative followed by words from the events Principal Race Officer Bruno de Wannemaeker.
The Registration detail for the 2014 Azores IFCA Slalom Windsurfing World Championship shows 57 entries from 18 nations representing 3 continents. The top five from the 2013 Worlds in Germany are here: World Champion Gunnar Asmussen (GER-88) from Flensburg, Vincent Langer (GER-122) from Kiel, Dutchman Jordy Vonk, Sebastian Kornum from Denmark and Maciej Rutkowski from Poland.
Maciej actually heads the IFCA World Slalom Ranking List which is a continuous system. Every competitor can compete in as many events as he wants, his actual ranking position being based on the sum of the best 3 ranking points over the last 24 months.
We also have Italian Andrea Rosati here, winner of the title 2013 IFCA Masters Slalom World Champion in Turkey, and 2012 Slalom World Champion, Gonzalo Costa Hoevel from Argentina, who has been competing in the Formula Windsurfing World Championships which preceeded this event in the Azores.
To see what everyone is racing with, check the equipment list.
After the late registrations were done the first official skippers meeting was held today at 12:00.
The wind is very light and all competitors are on standby until further notice.
IFCA Slalom World Championships Azores 2014 / Day 2
Day2:
The day started out as usual with some clouds and a light breeze.
After the 9am skippers meeting the AP flag went up and competitors were on standby as the conditions turned into very tricky unstable winds that blew from 5 knots to 20 knots out on the course area.
Some competitors took their time to prepare their gear and most of them when out for a test run on their biggest sails. Several times the wind seemed to be kicking in but, it just would not cover the whole course area and even if it did, it did not last too long either.
The events Principal Race Officer Bruno de Wannemaeker and the event organizer Carlos Borges took a rib drive around the point of the coastline and discovered that the wind and the sun were smiling and having fun around the corner at Porto Martines. The conditions looked more stable than the scheduled course area thus was a proposal made by the organizer to move the event area as from tomorrow to make the best out of the predicted forecast.
The event was called of in the afternoon while the conditions continued to be difficult and unstable here at Praia da Vitória.
What’s happening tomorrow:
Big Trucks will be ready early in the morning to transport the competitors their gear to another location nearby. A new course will be set at the new location and hopefully we can kick off with the first races of this event.
FOTO Eric Bellande
TESTO Ruben Petrisie
