(Kamperland, The Netherlands)- The J/24 European Championship sailing in Kamperland had a stunning last day. England's Bob Turner sailing SERCO surprised everybody to take the lead in the standings from favorite XENON of Peer Kock from Germany. The final day was even more exciting as the reigning European champion Alexandros Tagaropoulos sailed HELLENIC POLICE to three perfect races in a row. The Greek crew won all three races while SERCO sailed to a 15th and 21st in the last two races. WILD STUFF!! The final results after 11 races showed that Bob Turner grabbed the European Championship from the Greeks with the smallest of margins. Favorite Peer Kock who was in first place during the first days of the championship had an off day for the final three races. He moved to third place overall. Rounding out the top five were Jan Kaehler sailing UNITED 5 from Germany in fourth and Dimitros Altsiadi from Greece finishing fifth sailing EYNIKH.
New European Champion Bob Turner of SERCO: “This was a though regatta with a very close finish, indeed. But fortunately we won. We have a good team, a combination of experience and youth. Despite of the weather the Race Management en organization here did a great job. The atmosphere was fantastic during this event. Our next target is the World Championship J/24 Sailing in Sweden”
Alexandros Tagaropoulos, skipper of GRE 751 HELLENIC POLICE, immediately after losing his European title: “Yes, very sad. We missed the title with only one point difference! After the second race, we had some strange trimming problems with our mainsail. Yesterday, I was inside the boat and I saw by incident that the mast step inside the boat was moving all the time. So I made a quick repair. Maybe that’s why we were performing much better today”. For more J/24 Europeans sailing information