Kinley Fowler reports from the Melges 24 Europeans

3:50 AM Tue 1 Sep 2009 GMT

'Fleet at the Melges 24 European Championships 2009' Pierrick Contin

Hyeres in France played host to the fleet of 90 boats this week, all fighting for one of the most competitive titles in fleet racing, the Melges 24 European Championships.

The standard of sailing is comparable to the Farr40 or even TP52, with teams such as Joe Fly and Blu Moon bringing in the likes of Francesco Bruni and Sebastien Col to call the shots.

My team didn't lack talent either, with two of GBR's Olympic hopefuls - John Gimson, a top Star sailor and John Pink who is first in line for the 2012 Olympics in the 49er. With Pink coming off a 2nd in the 49er Worlds on tactics, we knew that the only problem we were going to have would be keeping up with the rapid Italians who were setting the pace. However, after one day on the race course, it became apparent that we were going to have to fight harder than we thought to get into the top 20.

Action at the Melges 24 European Championships 2009 - Pierrick Contin

When a pack of 90 boats come together at a mark, crashes start to happen. I thought that match racing was a contact sport, but when you get stuck in a pack in this fleet, you are lucky to come out still floating. Finding a lane to sail in is a whole other story. However we began to find our feet after a rough start, and the packs slowly got smaller and smaller and the lanes got bigger and bigger.

Coming into the last day, we were sitting in 22nd. We had a lot of points to gain on the teams in front of us if we wanted to reach our goal of a top 20 result.

We finished 5th in the final race, and managed to put enough boats between our nearest competitors to pull up to 18th.

With the St Moritz Match Race starting this week in Switzerland, the Melges provided a great opportunity to race against some of the top match racers on the tour, and test my skills in a different area of sailing, hopefully giving us the edge needed to become "King of the Mountain".

www.mirskyracingteam.net
www.m24european2009.com

by Kinley Fowler - Mirsky Racing Team