Soling Masters Action
©Janko Virag
Soling World Masters Championship
Balatonalmadi, Hungary
With an early start on the final day at the 2012 Masters being held at the Balaton Lake, the green waters and the surrounding hills and absolutely no wind responded to a tired fleet.
But no matter how tired the sailors were, the boats were all out at 10:25 local time while waiting for a dark line in the lake and suddenly the most beautiful wind arrived, and a perfect start at 10:30, blowing 6 Beaufort in nice hiking conditions, steady and straight.
Peter Hall, Steve Lacey and Ben Medendorp (CAN) had complications with the mainsail at the beginning but they sorted it out in time and managed the start.
It was the typical Balaton breeze, in which the team Audi-Ramadabalaton of George Wossala, Pepe Nemeth and Karoly Vezer (HUN) were comfortable sailing in. They were morally obligated to win the final race from the start, and they did, just followed by Thomas Maschkiwitz, Stefan Wenzel and Christoph Wossala, Germany's Uwe Steingross, Karsten Eller and Tim Giesecke were also comfortable when the wind came and came through in third.
It was a nice ending for a championship with light winds, the wind helped to put many smiles in the faces no matter the results, while the prize giving was held in the lobby of the Ramadabalaton Hotel at 14:00.
It was the second time team Team Audi-Ramadabalaton have won the Masters World title this time over Maschkiwitz, Wenzel and Wossala who finish second climbing slowly up the leader board each day. The Canadians, who were defending champions, came through in third with Ukraine's Igor Yushko, Sergey Pichugin and Yarmolenka Dzmitriy finishing fourth.
The 2012 Masters leaves some valuable experience for the organization that will be hosting the 2013 Worlds, in which more racing days and earlier starts will be scheduled.
Masters Results
www.soling.com/results/ShowResults.asp?ID=682
