What a final: light winds in the morning, another AP flag due to no stable wind conditions and ending the day with a good 15 knot wind. Two more races happened today which brings the total for this event to 7 races of which one race is dropped for each boat as a throw out.
LUCIE again did very well and sailed strong in both races, getting off the starting line very well and fighting with the top five boats all thru both races. LUCIE took a 6th place in both races today and finishes the EUROPEAN Championship in 5th place overall. All four boats ahead of her (and behind her) are rule 3 boats with laminated sails on aluminum masts, self tailing winches, cam cleats on deck etc. Everybody on Team LUCIE is very happy and proud with the outcome and we had many crews from other boats swinging by and taking a very close look at LUCIE – not only her clean beauty at the dock but also expressing honest admiration for how well she is keeping up with the rule 3 boats.
At the end of this week in Nynashamn a lot of closer friendships develop from crew to crew and a sort of family feeling grows thru this fleet – despite all the fighting on the line and a few protest hearing over the course of the week. The most often heard phrase on the dock this afternoon was: “…see you in Flensburg next year!”
The LUCIE crew did not waste any time at the dock after the boat was cleaned up, took the chase boat and went a few miles out of Nynashamn to a small island for a tiny hidden fish restaurant and enjoyed dinner and a weeks worth of review on the waterfront with most tasty local fish specialties. We enjoyed a beautiful sunset on our ride back thru the archipelago on the RIB and took in the beauty of this part of Sweden before we settled for a night cap back at the hotel. Everybody is happy and tired – in a good way.
We will start tomorrow morning to take LUCIE apart and out of the water and most of the crew will spend an afternoon in Stockholm before we all head for the final awards dinner.
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