Sailing Magazine
The Hurter brothers Euan and Sean appear to be revelling in the 29er European Championships at Kiel Week as they are lying in the top third of the 168 boat fleet in their first major international regatta.
After 3 races they are lying 64th in the 168 boat fleet.
Euan Hurter said: “There are 186 boats and 4 fleets. The fleets were re-organised and we are now in yellow fleet (47boats). The wind was very light, shifty, and all over the place. Our fleet did two races at 14h00 and a third race at 19h00. It only gets dark at 23h00 so the days are long. Anyway, we sailed pretty well (although there were some tactical blunders on my part) and scored a 21, 17, 17. We are pretty happy with that as the conditions weren’t that favourable for us and above mid fleet in every race. The races are short (30 minutes) and furious and there was no real fleet separation due to the tiny course with almost 50 boats on it. Our main goal was to keep it clean and we gained roughly 5 places at the bottom gate just by not getting involved in the fighting”.
Overall, they are lying 64th and are only 5 points away from 50th place and qualification for gold fleet.
“We just need to stay consistently in the top 15. The results can change so quickly because of the split fleets. A bit of consolation is that quite a few youth worlds teams are behind us” said Hurter.
