Just as in the four previous days, today, by 13h00, the Stars started leaving Marina de Cascais heading for the racing area. The difference was in the weather conditions: very strong wind (more than 25 knots) and choppy sea, «it means impracticable conditions for the Star class», said José Cancella de Abreu, Clube Naval de Cascais races responsible. Nevertheless, at the scheduled time (14h00) the Race Committee fired the starting shot for the last race of the 2003 Star European Championship. However, the Race Committe was forced to, just afterwards, to hoist the postponement flag, which made the crews come back on shore waiting for new instructions. Until 16h00 there could have been a new start. And that's what happened: at 15h14 the postponement was strucked and the Stars went one more time to the sea, at this time about half of the fleet had chosen not to get in the race again.

For this reason, with a new racing area defined, in front of São Pedro do Estoril, at 16h28 definitively started the race that completed the Championship, with the wind blowing from the north at about 18 knots, that fell to ten by the end of the race. Starting the last race pressioned to finish between the five first crews and ahead of the dutch Neeleman to keep the leadership achieved yesterday, Torben Grael and Marcelo Ferreira were able to perform the challenge. Although they've had a less promising start, since they were ninth in the first round mark and behind the dutch, in the downwind leg Grael showed what he knows better and started recovering. In the end of the second upwind leg he already had advantage over the dutch and with «a good downwind leg» he achieved the victory and closed with a gold key one more European. In the end, the skipper praised the performance of the crew from Netherlands: «it was difficult, Mark sailed fair, but he didn't make things easy with a good start».

Although a little frustrated about the second place overall, Mark Neeleman recognised brazilian's superiority: «it isn't easy beating Grael, he's too fast downwind and we couldn't follow him». The next stoppage of the crew, constituted by Mark Neeleman/Peter Van Niekerk, is in Cadiz, in the World Championship, where they will «try to qualify the country to the Olympics».

Whom was also a little disappointed with the last race of the championship was Afonso Domingos, that finished his participation with an OCS. Besides, the skipper thinks that he wasn't on the course side: «I was on the left side but whom said we were on the course side was the boat on the right side, and i think this is strange... It's a pity because this was an important race as we were all very close to each other». This drawback made Afonso Domingos/Bernardo Santos fell two positions to eleventh place, finishing as the fifth best european crew.

The other portuguese teams didn't come to the championship to fight for a place between the best of the Europe. Above all it was «a very funny return» of Patrick Monteiro de Barros to the Star class, with Henrique Anjos, and a new experience to the crew Elísio Lourenço/Alexandre Carioca. The 43rd place «wasn't a bad result to someone who hasn't sailed in Star for eleven years», as the of Commodore of Clube Naval de Cascais said, mainly considering that «this is a high professionalized class». On what concerns to Elísio Lourenço he was a resigned man with the last place overall: «things didn't go well and they couldn't be». The lack of training and coordination of the crew joined the lack of weight (total weight less than 140 kg) and the strong winds.

Clube Naval de Cascais said goodbye to the 62 crews that competed in this championship with a prize giving cerimony to the best crews of the regatta.

Source: Event Editor