In This Issue
• Ian Williams Wins Seventh Match Racing World Championship
• Bacardi Winter Series Event 1
• All good up top - IMA
• 2024 ORC Double Handed Europeans
• A Century of Sailing: Waldringfield Sailing Club 1921-2021
• International Friendship Radiating From Cork
• The World Diam Tour (WDT) France 2024 is on ...
• Melges 24 European Sailing Series
• Featured Brokerage:
• • Corby Spirit of Tradition - Spirit Of Joyride
• • Beneteau First 36
• • Bella Donna
• The Last Word: Daniel Dennett

Brought to you by Seahorse magazine and YachtScoring.com EuroSail News is a digest of sailing news and opinions, regatta results, new boat and gear information and letters from sailors -- with a European emphasis. Contributions welcome, send to

Ian Williams Wins Seventh Match Racing World Championship
Shenzhen, China: Britain's Ian Williams has clinched his seventh Match Racing World Championship title with his Chinaone.Ningbo team of Jon Gundersen, Richard Sydenham, and Gerrard Mitchell. His victory in the 2023 WMRT Final sets a new record for the most championship wins in the Tour's history.

Williams had to work hard to earn his victory, battling Megan Thomson in the semi-finals and Gavin Brady in the final. Thomson, who eliminated round-robin winner Bjorn Hansen, managed to secure a win against Williams in their semi-final match before he claimed his spot in the final with a score of 3-1.

The fight for the championship title was some of the closest match racing of the entire regatta. It was Brady who got the first point on the board.

The next three races all went to Williams, but not without a tough battle. In a thrilling third race, Brady and Williams were changing leads and crossing tacks, never more than a few boat lengths away from each other. But it was Williams and his team who found the favourable shifts and pulled ahead.

Another remarkable performance was seen from Megan Thomson and her 2.0 Racing team, securing a third-place finish this week. Thomson became the first female skipper to be in the top four of a World Match Racing Tour Final and defeated 2023 Bermuda Cup's undefeated champion Johni Berntsson (SWE) for the podium spot.

Megan Thomson (NZL) 2.0 Racing (crew Leo Takahashi, Nicholas Heiner, Niall Malone) Photo: Ian Roman/WMRT "The result is more than we could have hoped for," says Thomson after the third place finish.

Full race results at matchracingresults.com

wmrt.com

Bacardi Winter Series Event 1
Miami, USA: A riveting single race on Sunday, December 17, determined the leaderboard for Bacardi Winter Series Event 1.

The overcast sky that lingered from Saturday gave way to clearing skies on Sunday, with a westerly breeze exceeding 20 knots and gusts up to 30 knots on Biscayne Bay. Once again, the vagaries of the weather played havoc with the schedule, disrupting the Race Committee's initial hope for three back-to-back races. A one-hour postponement ashore and no let-up in the weather conditions led the committee to opt for a single race.

The challenging conditions would reward superior teamwork and with both J/70 and Melges 24 running deep with talent, it was a question of where the luck would lie. Despite just one race, teams were happy to get out on the water and enjoy plenty of on the edge action.

'Very Odd' with David Jannetti at the helm won the race by around one minute over the twenty-one boat J/70 fleet, with Daniel Goldberg's 'Bazinga' in second and Bryce Kalow's 'Superior 2' finishing third.

The top J/70 Corinthian team was Scott Weakley's Canadian team on 'REX' in 14th overall.

J/70 Final Top 5 results
1. David Jannetti / Travis Odenbach / Willem Van Waay / Andy Horton (USA 1513)
2. Daniel Goldberg / Tomas Hornos / Kristen Berry / Goncalo Ribeiro (USA 84)
3. Bryce Kalow / Ian Coleman / Alec Kalow / Chris Stocke (USA 216)
4. Trey Sheehan / Reed Balridge / Brad Boston / Curtis Florence (USA 389)
5. Aaron Drury / Brian Johansen / Ian Hunter / Telmo Basterra / Orrin Star (CAN 771)

Andrea Pozzi's team on 'Bombarda' took control of the seventeen-boat Melges 24 fleet to secure the top spot, with Cuyler Morris on 'Dark Horse' coming in second and Laura Grondin's 'Dark Energy' finishing third. -- Luissa Smith

Melges 24 Final Top 5 results
1. Andrea Pozzi / Filippo Amonti / Matteo IvaldI / Stefano Ciampalini / Carlo Zermini (ITA 865)
2. Cuyler Morris / Keiran Searle / Charlie Hibben / Elizabeth Whitner / John Bowden (USA 863)
3. Laura Grondin / Taylor Canfield / Federico Michetti / Ian Liberty / Mark Ivey (USA 864)
4. Geoff Fargo / Jackson Benvenutti / Grant Janov / William McBride / Haydon Stapleton (USA 856)
5. Richard Reid / Serena Vilage / Ian Sloan / Bill Gooderham / Brian Kamilar (CAN 853)

bacardiinvitational.com

All good up top - IMA
Maxi yacht racing is on a roll. Both inshore and offshore numbers have been very healthy in 2023; we wrapped up the inshore season with a successful Les Voiles de Saint-Tropez; and the offshore season too with a nail-biting climax to the Rolex Middle Sea Race.

Saint-Tropez this year was unusual in that we were able to race the full planned programme! Nearly always this regatta loses day(s) from too little wind or a Mistral.

We have reverted from having a separate week for maxis alone and now there is an overlap with the classic and modern fleets. Though this makes things crowded at times, the atmosphere of the event felt reclaimed. The magic of the mixture of classic schooners and the most modern maxis side by side in the harbour is a unique and wonderful spectacle of which one never tires.

This year's format meant that on the first day we were on our own and able to race on the Baie de Saint-Tropez.

Full article in the January issue of Seahorse

2024 ORC Double Handed Europeans now open for Entry
Caorle, Italy: The Circolo Nautico Porto Santa Margherita (CNSM) and the Offshore Racing Congress (ORC) are pleased to announce that registration for entry is now open for the 2024 ORC Double Handed European Championship held in Caorle, Italy over 30 April – 5 May 2024. This event is being held concurrently with the CNSM's 30th edition of the La Duecento Race, a 200-mile course in the upper Adriatic that takes the fleet from Caorle to the Grado buoy then to the island of Susak in Croatia and return.

Caorle is an ancient seaside village over 1000 years old on an island near Venice that features winding streets, colorful houses, spacious piazzas, and is readily accessible to major highways, train lines and the international airport at Venice.

It is the perfect backdrop for this important international sailing event. CNSM was awarded the Bronze Medal of Sporting Merit by Coni in 2018 and is considered one of the most active sailing clubs in the Adriatic.

he event is open to all boats with valid 2024 ORC DH International certificate with APH between 425.0 and 630.0 s/NM included. It is CNSM's intention to have no more than three classes containing boats of similar performances with expected APH values in the range of 80 – 120 sec/NM for each Class. CNSM reserves the right to use different rating values for class definitions as well as to adjust any class limit. Final class definitions will be agreed by CNSM and ORC by the close of entries on 15 April 2024.

orc.org/dheuropeans2024

A Century of Sailing: Waldringfield Sailing Club 1921-2021
Waldringfield Sailing Club celebrated its centenary in 2021, 100 years of sailing on the River Deben, in Suffolk, and as part of those celebrations started work on writing its history. The result is 'A Century of Sailing – Waldringfield Sailing Club 1921-2021', published Nov 30, 2023. It is 460 pages long, contains over 1,100 photos and illustrations, 200,000 words, and a cast of thousands. It is a heavy and detailed tome.

Waldringfield Sailing Club was established in 1921 in a small First World War Nissen hut at Gorse Cabin beside the picturesque River Deben. An eclectic group of 11 enthusiasts set some basic rules and arranged a programme of races.

The formation of the Club came after a period of heavy industry in the small riverside village when leisure pursuits, especially sailing and racing, became more popular. Over the next 100 years it would grow to more than 800 members, who would go on to win numerous national and world titles.

Meticulously researched and pieced together from the Club's records, as well as many personal narratives and contributions, 'A Century of Sailing - Waldringfield Sailing Club 1921-2021' is a detailed history of one of the leading sailing clubs in East Anglia. Its fascinating story, the key characters, its complicated relationship to the local church, to the brewery that operated the pub, to the Fairway Committee and to the village and those who worked there, are explored in detail.

'A Century of Sailing' was edited, compiled, and largely written by Robert Deaves with contributions from a huge number of club members.

It is published in hardback. ISBN: 978-1-912724-26-0

Copies can be ordered at £35 each through the WSC website at: waldringfieldsc.com

robertdeaves.uk

Ireland's Cruising And Voyaging Continues To Develop The Rich Legacy And International Friendship Radiating From Cork
The fleet of the 1720-founded Water Club of the Harbour of Cork on manoeuvres in 1738. Individual or group cruising visits by these pioneering boats to West Cork and sometimes further were so frequent that they scarcely merited mention in the club records. Photo: RCYC. Click on image to enlarge.

There's an easygoing yet quietly dynamic relationship between the leading cruising clubs on both sides of the Atlantic, drawing on the wealth of experience afloat and ashore gained over very many decades and even centuries by the very first clubs and their members.

These ways of doing things have emerged both from the protocols that began with the Water Club of the Harbour of Cork in 1720 with its subsequent re-branding in the 1820s to become the Royal Cork Yacht Club, and from the ambitions for direct cruising organisational development.

This first came to the top of the agenda in 1880 in London with the challenges of developing a new non-premises cruising club in London, a club whose members would share a fascination with cruising under sail and its engendering of friendship, sociability and mutual support of all kinds through flourishing in an organisation in which many of the members, while very much sailing enthusiasts, were avowedly non-racing people.

Today, with the Cruising Group within several of our sailing and yacht clubs in Ireland being the single largest sub-section of the membership, it's difficult to visualize a time when the yachting establishment saw real sailing as only being in racing. But as it happens, it took a while to acknowledge the validity of this bedrock of our sport, and in the Irish context we realise yet again what a giant in our sailing progress was the physically diminutive Harry Donegan (1870-1940) of Cork.

Read WM Nixon's full article in Afloat magazine

The World Diam Tour (WDT) France 2024 is on ...
Our objective in 2024 for the WDT France is to further increase the ratio of sailing time versus logistical time for maximum enjoyment. If the 2023 circuit confirmed that we were on the right track, the 2024 circuit will keep the same DNA but will be even better!

A new team, a new circuit that is simpler, more accessible and more responsible. Fewer miles on the road, more miles on the water between specified courses, raids and rallying stages !

The Diam is a safe bet, recognised by World Sailing since 2017.

The Diam is logically a natural step in an apprenticeship programme for young people and for all sailors looking for new challenges!

Book a weekend in February or March, for a first training session with several boats.

We offer a full service to help you get to grips with the boat and to be 100% on the water and the sensations.

diam24onedesign.com

Melges 24 European Sailing Series
The Melges 24 European Sailing Series has successfully concluded its 2023 season, marking a significant milestone for the iconic Melges 24 boat as it celebrates its 30th anniversary. The series, featuring 13 events in the ranking, witnessed the participation of 101 teams from 15 countries, showcasing the enduring popularity and competitive spirit of this renowned sailing class. Chinook, helmed by Akos Csolto (HUN), secured overall and Corinthian titles, followed by Luka Šangulin's Panjić and Mataran 24, led by Ante Botica, from Croatia.

The 2022 Corinthian champion of the series, Chinook, helmed by Akos Csolto (HUN), secured both overall and Corinthian titles.

Overall Top 5 Of The 2023 Melges 24 European Sailing Series:
1. Chinook Hun850 - Akos Csolto - 128.20 (Corinthian)
2. Panjic Cro739 - Luka Sangulin - 126.90
3. Mataran 24 Cro383 - Ante Botica/Ivo Matic - 125.25
4. Gill Race Team Gbr694 - Geoff Carveth/Miles Quinton - 120.50 (Corinthian)
5. Razjaren Cro867 - Ante Cesic/Lukasz Podniesinski - 117.75

Corinthian Top 5 Of The 2023 Melges 24 European Sailing Series:
1. Chinook Hun850 - Akos Csolto - 128.20 (Corinthian)
2. Gill Race Team Gbr694 - Geoff Carveth/Miles Quinton - 120.50 (Corinthian)
3. White Room Ger677 - Luis Tarabochia/Michael Tarabochia - 112.20 (Corinthian)
4. Helly Hansen Lisa 2 Nor697 - Borre Hekk Paulsen/Kristoffer Spone - 93.30 (Corinthian)
5. Lenny Est790 - Tonu Toniste - 89.05 (Corinthian)

Complete results of the 2023 Melges 24 European Sailing Series (PDF)

melges24.com/europeansailingseries

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See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

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Berthon UK
Tel: 0044 (0)1590 679 222
E-Mail:

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See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

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1999 BELLA DONNA Open 50. 155,000 EUR. Located in France.

Very robust, reliable, spacious and versatile boat fully refurbished to participate in the Route du Rhum 2022.

The boat was built in 1999: she took part in the Transat Jacques Vabre, she then completed the Transat Québec-Saint Malo and the Route du Rhum in 2002 before being stored ashore for several years. She therefore completed three short-handed transatlantic races without difficulty.

In 2021, she was fully refurbished, she took part in the Middle Sea Race 2021 (6th doublehanded) and she took part in the Route du Rhum 2022.

Complete refit in 2021 and 2022

See listing details in Seahorse's RaceboatsOnly

Contact

Phone : +33 (0) 467 66 39 93

See the RaceboatsOnly.com collection at seahorsemagazine.com/brokerage/

The Last Word
What you can imagine depends on what you know. -- Daniel Dennett

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