New champions crowned at SSAB ORC Eureopean Championship 2019

Today's two final races sailed in 12-17 knot conditions at the SSAB ORC European Championship 2019 has produced three new teams crowned as champions in Classes A, B and C. These teams defeated their rivals after four days of six intense inshore windward/leeward races in addition to a non-discardable offshore race. Wind conditions all week were across a range of 8 to 20 knots, perfect for determining the new title teams.

In Class A the winner among 7 entries was in contention all week long, each day trading the lead with the runner-up team and today making the outcome certain by winning both races. Erik Berth's Swan 45 Tarok VII from Denmark was sailed superbly by Bjorn Jakobsen, Charlotte Kempf, Chris Norgaard, Henrik Larsen, Jakob Berth, John Pedersen, Jonas Hansen, Nicklas Jensen, Peter Molkiaer, Rune Tonnesen and Berth himself.

Winning the Silver medal in Class A was One Sailing Finland's TP 52 Zer0emission, skippered by Samuli Leisti, and winning Bronze was Karalow Witold's Soto 40 Scamp 27 from Poland defeating Bernhard Buchwald's XP 44 Xenia from Germany on a tie-break.

The Class B podium finishers this week had to fight hard among 25 teams on the race course, with several teams from Germany, Estonia and Finland in contention at various times in the week. Yet racing above the fray with a consistently excellent performance shown throughout the competition was a team from Germany that won outright 5 of 7 races, and whose discard was a respectable third place score in today's first race.

Axel Seehafer's X-41 Sportsfreund with his team members Gordon Nickel, Bendix Hügelmann, Holger Lehning, Gunnar Bahr, Jörg Siebahn, Jesper Radich, Vasco Ollero, Michel Voss, and Lennart Stegmann are the new ORC Class B European Champions, well-earned in a very tough class.

The remaining podium positions are also filled by German teams: Jens Kuphal's Landmark 43 Intermezzo in second, who came on strong in the last four races with scores of 1-3-1-3, and Michael Berghorn's X-41 Halbtrocken 4.0 in third who bounced back in recovery from a DSQ in yesterday's first race.

Class C with 37 entries was also a tough class, and although the winning team took an early lead with two bullets and held on throughout the week, the racing was extremely close among the top teams, with only seconds in corrected time separating places in the races and only 10 points between the top five in the final scores.

Joachim Aschenbrenner skippered the Estonian modified J/112E Matilda 4 to victory, with team members Arne Veske, Koit Pauts, Aso Koris, Joonas Kiisler, Maarjus Leppik, Taavi Eller, Andrus Luht, and Matteo Ivaldi. The rest of the podium was also filled with Estonian teams: the past year's European Champion in this class, Aivar Tuulberg's Arcona 340 Katariina II in second, and the Sven Nuutmann-skippered CYD 37 Postimees Sailing Team in third