Two years of the European Circuit lie behind us. Like every innovation, it was a challenging attempt to breathe new life into our class. We had the following goals:
- challenging races
- for all our different sailors
- in a friendly community
- and open to all boat designs.
In my opinion, this attempt was a complete success. In 14 regattas, we had 345 participants from 11 European countries. The boats sailed were Super3, Norlin Mk III, Stradivari, Norlin OD and David Hollom Design.
None of these designs was superior to the others. On the contrary, each one sailed to the front in one or the other regatta. This confirms the often-expressed view:
It’s not the man at the drawing board (or computer) that counts, but the man at the helm. This is different in our design class than, for example, in the 5.5, but it saves us money.
The after-sailing programme is one of the outstanding features of the European Cicuit. Here, the individual clubs set very different standards, for example
- By a participant-hosted dinner, where everyone brought something from their home country, creating a wonderful buffet.
- Or by awarding prizes of the day, drawn from a drum.
- Or a speech that reviewed 10 years of a regatta, full of highlights.
- Or by awarding the first participation in a regatta.
- Or the most consistent sailor of a regatta with only last places.
- Or a spontaneous polonaise by the participants.
- Or a special welcome at the shore with bread an bear.
- Or a quiz with sailing-related questions.
- Or a special thank to all helpers on water or on land.
- Or with individual music, to which each participant was introduced on the welcome evening.
On the one hand, the after-sailing programme created a strong sense of community between the participants, but on the other hand, there was also a very relaxed atmosphere in the evening, when people suddenly started singing along, individual participants started dancing or a conga line led through the hall.
The fact that the European Circuit is attracting a great deal of interest beyond active regatta participation is shown by the number of visits to the website www.2point4.eu. In the two years, we had 68,000 visits with a total of 180,000 page views. The trend is increasing and not only from the participating countries in Europe, but worldwide.
Two new terms in this year reflect very well, what we want and what we are:
Ben van Cauwenbergh said briefly and concisely: „Serious sailing and serious fun“. And Andreas Greufe spoke of the „Action4Europe family“. That´s it!
We are therefore encouraged in every respect to continue the European Circuit in 2025. Anyone who has now smelled a rat should simply take part in one or other of the regattas.
Until then, stay healthy (or become healthy).