2023 J/70 European Championship

Doug Rastello and his USA team on ‘Good To Go’ have won the 2023 J/70 European Championship on September 5-9 in Portland, UK. With crew Steve Hunt, John Wallace, and Morgan Trubovich, Rastello won by 11 points over Vasco Serpa and Solyd Sailing Team/SailCascais who become the European Champions. No wind on the final two days allowed for a five races.

There could be no doubting that Rastello’s crew proved worthy winners of the regatta IN THE 48-boat fleet. Their scores of 11,3,2,7,6 were significantly more consistent than the rest of the fleet. The top-placed boat to win an individual race was the Mexican entry in fifth overall, Zaguero skippered by Ignacio Perez.

Rastello had brought together a group of friends who had never sailed together before but he knew he had the right ingredients for success. “I needed to get the dream team together and I think we did. We had the right chemistry and it was a really good team, solid,” said Rastello.

With such a talented team there might have been a risk of too many cooks spoiling the broth, but Rastello said the communications loop and decision making process worked well on board.

“Everybody respects each other’s role and we talked about that before the regatta. We agreed that the best way you put a team together is to have everyone do their own job and not tell others how to do theirs. I have done tactics in the past, but this week I just listened to where Steve told me to go, and it seemed to work.”

Of the 48 entries, 32 were Corinthian, a typically high proportion of the J/70 fleet in Europe. Pär Svärdsson’s crew on Happy Yachting came out ahead for Sweden, with Stefan Seger’s Aiola (SUI) in second, and Jonathan Calascione’s Calypso (GBR) in third.

Details: https://yachtscoring.com/emenu.cfm?eID=15643