FINLAND REPORTING

Team Pohjola-Fonecta Finder, FIN-434 reporting from Finland. Team Pohjola-Fonecta Finder, FIN-434, skippered by Tomi Hakola started off their Melges 24 season in mid May in Naantali, the southwestern part of Finland with the first Finnish Melges 24 ranking event. The Finnish event gathered 7 teams to the always sunny and beautiful summer town of Naantali. From the start the fleet had excellent racing. As usual at the finishing line the margins between the boats weren´t long. Everything was looking good for the team to achieve a bronze medal but the two starts on Sunday were a disaster. Like always you have to sail the entire regatta! Our boat speed during the weekend was good and the team was confident going to ranking 2. The final result for us was a 5th place (4,3,4,6,4,6= 21pts)

Five days later - ranking 2 in Helsinki, only 4 nautical miles outside our home harbour started off excellently:-) In the first start a win and in the second 3rd. On Sunday we continued in difficult wind conditions our good sailing. At the end of the last beat we were 3rd but during the last downwind leg we snatched Jaguar X-Type and Suunto! Then in the last start the only thing was to keep Suunto not to win the start - a really weird thing... We really hoped that everybody would be before Suunto. In the end Suunto placed 3rd and we 6th. The final results:

Final results, Finnish Melges 24 ranking 2
1. Pohjola-Fonecta Finder, FIN-434: 1,3,1,(6) - 5.7pts
2. Jaguar X-Type, FIn529; 3,(DNF), 2,1 - 8.7pts.
3. Suunto, FIN-476: 2,1,3,(3) - 8.7pts

Only 4 days after the second event in Helsinki the team packed the boat and car and headed towards the Swedish Open Championship. The Swedish Champs were held this year in southern Sweden, outside the city of Landskrona. Landskrona is located only 40 kilometres north of the city of Malmö.

We arrived to the harbour on Friday at 6 a.m. after a 7½ hour ferry trip + "a driving leg" of 650 kilometres from Stockholm through the night. After breakfast and 5 hours of sleeping we started rigging the boat. The first start took place at 4 p.m. We had 1½ hours time for training the local winds etc. The wind and the current were on Friday from north. On Saturday the wind and also the current had shifted to south. On both days the wind was light to medum 3 to 7 m/s. Friday and Saturday were tactically rather boring because there was only one place to go during the upwind and downwind legs. Luckily on Sunday the wind shifted to west and also th current died away. This made some possibilities in the tactics.

After 4 starts we were still hanging on to the bronze and having a good chance of snatching a silver. But the mystical Sunday effect again... A couple of small mistakes in the first start of Sunday dropped us from 2nd to 5th leaving us out of the medals.

Our final result in the 2005 Swedish Open Championship was 4th out of 10 boats.

But overall the weekend was magnificant - temperatures from 20 to 25 degrees, blue sky, flat water and winds from 3 to 8 m/s. What could be better for the Melges 24 sailing?

Final results, Swedish Open Championship 2005
1 SWE 508 Claes Röjning KSSS (3) 2 1 1 1 1 =6pts
2 GBR 411 Andreas Helmgård BOSS 1 3 2 3 2 (6) =11pts
3 SWE 230 Fredrik Rege WBS 2 1 (5) 4 4 2 =13pts
4 FIN 434 Tomi Hakola EMK 4 (5) 2 2 5 4 =17pts