VIDEO: Dealing with the extreme
Published on March 19th, 2018
At 40 years of age, Ed Wright (GBR) won his second Finn European Championship title at the 2018 edition held March 12-17 in Cádiz, Spain.
Having previously won in 2006, Wright entered the medal race in second behind Nicholas Heiner (NED), but the extreme conditions got the best of Heiner who suffered several capsizes and a last place finish which dropped him to silver.
“It was a crazy race,” remarked Wright. “I saw Heiner capsize at the five-minute so then I realised everyone was having a hard time with the conditions and not just me.
“I knew I needed to nail the start which I did and immediately rolled Heiner, which was great and had good speed to extend. I tried to sail him back and still stay in contention, as I needed boats between us. I got an early gybe in on the first run and sailed the boat hard downwind and extended. By then it was a matter of keeping it upright.
“The seas were massive and very difficult, but it was awesome sailing and awesome racing. I enjoyed every second. What a race. I am so happy to win the title again.”
In the video below, ride the rollercoaster downwind in the medal race with Caleb Paine (USA) in 24-30 knots. Hang on…it’s going to get rough.
Final Results (Top 10 of 91; 9 races, 1 discard)
1 GBR 11 Edward Wright 57 (5)
2 NED 89 Nicholas Heiner 60 (9)
3 SWE 33 Max Salminen 71 (2)
4 NZL 24 Josh Junior 73 (1)
5 USA 6 Caleb Paine 73 (3)
6 GBR 91 Ben Cornish 92 (6)
7 BRA 109 Jorge Zarif 97 (DSQ)
8 CRO 1 Josip Olujic 99 (4)
9 FRA 112 Jonathan Lobert 101 (7)
10 GRE 77 Ioannis Mitakis 110 (8)