| TORBOLE, ITALY-(5-9-2004) Two last races were raced today and was enough a fifth and a third for HUN 1 (Gyenese / Monus / Vezer) to consolidate the victory in the 2003 European Championship, the second title in a row for the Hungarian team after winning the Dino Shiesaro Trophy earlier this week.
Following two teams from Germany - Koch / Koch / Bornemann won the first race of the day and then made a second in the second race winning over the new 2003 World Master Champion (Haist / Carsten / Diesing), finishing the second place overall.
The fourth place went to the Westel's team also from Hungary and the fifth place went to Markus Schneeberger / Christian Panek / Harry Vettermann from Austria.
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A wonderfull day with blue sky and an early. strong about 4-5 bft Ora started. Some confusion on the first beat, because this time the right side didn`t paid fully. The Signal-Iduna Team of Koch came conservative through the middle and lead the fleet by two boats lengths in front of Urlesberger, Schneeberger and Cunha. Haist and Balazs were packed about 10th. Koch went away on the reaches and sailed his own race while the two Austrians had a really hard fight. At the end, Koch got his second bullit in a row by 3 minutes in front of Schneeberger. Urlesberger, Cunha and Balzs followed. Haist finished 10th and so Koch was back in the race for the title, but only with a little possibility to win.
The wind increases a bit for the last championship race, in puufs up to 6 bft. and so the last, exciting race got under way. Wossala got the best start and realised an early lead with 50 meters. Balazs, Cunha and Schneeberger followed. Koch was 8th at the weather mark after having a bad start. The first run closed the first 8 boats and after the second beat, the only change was Koch to become 6th. The triangel brought exciting reaches and Koch could close the gap to the leaders, so Wossala lead with 70 meters, followed by a very close 4 boat fleet about 200 meters in front of the rest. These 4 fighted hard on the run and at the end they were separated by only 5 boatslengths. The last beat was again thrilling, because Koch worked his way from 5th to a clear second behind Wossala, which was not enough, because Balazs finished third, Cunha and ! Schneeberger following.
At the end, Balazs / Gyula / Vezer is a great champion; everytime with good speed and superb crew work in all conditions.
The Signal-Iduna Team of Koch lost nearly all chances in the first race, when they fell back to ninth, but they were dominating all wind races with impressive speed and boat handling.
Haist (Binsenschnuffler) was the light weather man to beat, what was nearly impossible at the beginning, because he had the right nose for the tricky conditions, he also is now the new 2003 Master World Champion.
Many thanks to the club for perfect organization, the race committee for a great job and also the jury, especially Chris Simon, who introduced rule 42 in such a perfect way, that there were no troubles due to this point!!
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