Back with good news
After a somewhat long winter break, Black Star Sailing is back with the first news post of 2022. Of course we were not idle during the winter months – and so we can now come up with a lot of great news.
Finally, the pandemic-related restrictions fell so far in the fading winter that planning trips became easier again. Accordingly, the planning of the GC32 Racing Tour could be completed on time:
Once again, there will be no overseas regattas this year. Instead, the events will take place at proven venues in Europe. The Racing Tour will start in Riva on Lake Garda before heading to Lagos in the Algarve for two consecutive events. The first event in Lagos serves as preparation for the World Championship, which will take place there at the end of July. After that, the tour goes to Sardinia before the final event takes place in Spain, just like last year.
Winter training as a foretaste of a great season
After the easing of travel restrictions, Black Star Sailing immediately arranged a training session with other teams.
Highly motivated, we fetched our catamaran from the shipyard. It gleamed in all its new splendour as we had overhauled it again during the winter months. Even the smallest damages were found and repaired, all sheets were replaced and the whole boat was checked for hidden weak points by ultrasound scan. After last year’s breakage of the mast in the first event, we paid special attention to it.
We met up with the teams from France, Denmark, Canada and Team Tilt from Switzerland for a joint winter training session in Lagos. From a weather point of view, we had an ideal week. With winds of 5 – 20 knots, sunshine, but also rain, we had the whole weather programme, and were thus able to refine our manoeuvres in the most varied conditions.
How important it is to sail in a barely changed formation for a longer period of time was already evident on the first day: With winds of over 20 knots, we experienced a literally “cold start” – our winter rust was simply swept away. And in the process, we were able to experience that four months before, we ended the 2021 season on a really high level. The somewhat rough start to the 2022 season was a success straight away: the manoeuvres worked much better than in previous years, even if they were a little unsteady at the beginning.
On the following days, the other teams joined in, so that we were able to complete a few fruitful competition days as a considerable training line-up and carry out test races together.
By winning all the races, the Black Star Team put a first exclamation mark – even though the other teams might not have sailed quite at the limit. Even after bad starts, we managed to make up the deficit and prove our strength from last year.
We are aware though that at the upcoming regattas, reality can look a little different. Nevertheless, we are very satisfied with the winter training.
You can find impressions of our training and the latest pictures on our Instagram profile:
2022 – A season with a full calendar
Finally, we can look into the future and plan again. Thanks to the relaxation of travel restrictions, the GC32 Racing Tour can once again concentrate exclusively on the events, the competitions and the sport.
The 2022 season starts in Riva on Lake Garda at the end of May. For the second and third events, it will be back in Lagos, on the coast of Portugal. The conditions on land and on the water are so ideal in Lagos that, after the 2019 season, the World Championship will again be held there in 2022. After that, the GC32 Racing Tour will take us via Villasimius in Sardinia to the Mar Menor in Spain for the end of the season.
However, the GC32 Racing Tour is not all that fills our agenda. After extensive research and preparations we can now come up with other great news:
Secret news
Our long-time fans know that the Black Star Sailing Team was also founded to give up-and-coming sailors an opportunity to gain experience and a foothold in the professional sailing world.
Originally, the plan was to make this possible in the GC32 boat class. However, over the past few years we have found that this is not satisfactory. The jump to the GC32 high-performance boat is too big for young sailors. At the same time, the crew on a foiling catamaran does not cope well with the constant reshuffling by young sailors, which means that we would not be able to sail at the front of the GC32 class.
In the past months, we have intensively dealt with the topic and looked for possibilities to be able to offer an “intermediate step”. We were on the lookout for a boat class that also runs an international competition series like the GC32 Racing Tour, but which is not quite as demanding in terms of sailing. In the meantime, we have found what we were looking for and will soon be able to present a yacht that is painted in our colours and that offers a high standard for our young sailors without being too demanding.
More information will follow as soon as the project.
Supported by old and new partners
As mentioned above, the Black Star Sailing Team will try to be successful in different boat classes in the future. This is only possible with the support and assistance of our partners. To our great pleasure, we were able to gain new sponsors in addition to our existing ones.
We will dedicate another post in the newsfeed to our partners, the existing and the new ones, in the coming days.
We are excited about your interest.