Peter & Michael Delbridge of www.boatshedhamble.com have just sponsored a good friend of theirs Steve Sault and his crew in the 2010 J80 European championships out on Lake Garda.

Steve takes up the story so far:

"We are racing a J80 one design bow sprit boat called Hoolingkazan in the
European championship at lake Garda. There are 44 J80's from as far as
Estonia in the east and Portugal in the west. All the boats were weighed and
checked for conformity to the J80 specifications and some had to make
adjustments to keel and weight.... we were 5 kg too light and had to put
lead by the keel bolts....... being light was a good sign for the state of
our 8 year old boat!

The scenery is stunning but that goes out the window
when all 44 boats want to hit the start line at the same time and we have
learnt some new words in Italian and French!!......

It’s been a steep learning curve trying to understand the wind on the lake
but one thing that is very reliable is that it blows from the north in the
morning and swings 180 deg about midday and you get a lovely F3 or 4 for the
rest of the day ..... the depth of the lake where we are racing is over 1000
ft deep ....... that’s a long way to dive if you drop a winch handle
overboard..... also the water is freezing !!

It was superb sailing and brilliant fun to race against the best to say the least . We learnt a lot and will come out fighting for the next big regatta!
Lake sailing is very different to coastal and offshore racing, but it’s very nice
not to have tides! "

Well done to Steve and his crew for towing the boat that far to race, lets
see if they can win the British Nationals this summer.