The 9 boats who came at the Esse850 Class Championship in Morges didn’t regret it. It was a beautiful week-end with plenty of wind and sun. Thursday with 20 knots of wind, there were a few practice races.

The championship started on Friday afternoon with a 1 hour delay due to the wind that was too strong. 3 races were run under a west wind varying from 18 to 25 knots and choppy waters. The boats and crews were challenged. On Saturday the first start was at 9am. The west wind was still there but a bit lighter and going down during the day. Another challenge was given to the crews : sail 7 races of 40 to 45 minutes each with not more than 5 to 10 minutes rest between the races… tiring, but hey! we are here to sail and the competition was beautiful. After a nice dinner on Saturday evening at the Club Nautique Morgien, we could sleep one hour more on Sunday. It was a beautiful sunny day with a light northwind (‘bise’) that could change anytime 180 deg to a ‘rebat’ (the bise bouncing against the mountain on the southside of the lake). It happened during one race which had to be cancelled, but we could still run 2 races with the last possible start at 2pm.

GER 41 Pura Goia took the win followed by SUI 180 Chantier Naval de Vidy 2^nd, and SUI 81 Nessie 3^rd who were very close during the whole week-end. The positions after them were also highly disputed, just check the ranking on https://www.manage2sail.com/fr-CH/event/CS22ESSE#!/results?classId=CNMEsse850 .

Alec