France triumphs at the EUROSAF Mixed Offshore European Championship

Benjamin Schwartz & Marie Riou took top spot ahead of Belgium and Spain

The second edition of the EUROSAF Mixed Offshore European Championship took place from 30 August to 5 September 2020, starting and finishing in Genoa, Italy.

Competitors sailed on L30 Class boats provided by the organising authority. In 2019, at the premiere event sailed also on the L30 from Venice to Trieste, the medals were taken by Austria, Belgium, and France. 

This year it was Schwartz & Riou who took the honours, battling against Íker Martínez & Natalia Via-Dufresne (ESP) for much of the race. After the Spaniards relinquished their lead to the French, they were then beaten to the finish by Belgians Jonas Gerckens & Sophie Faguet, so had to settle for bronze.

Schwartz & Riou took the lead from the Spanish team during the final night, with a risky decision to sail away from the leading boat and the rest of the fleet paying off.

“It was a hard and complicated race where we made some risky choices that turned out to be some bad ones and some good ones,” explained Schwartz.

“In the morning we found ourselves at the top of the fleet from where we controlled the race for the last few miles,” added Riou.
 
Gerckens & Faguet claimed silver, crossing the finish line around 80 minutes after the French gold medalists.

Third, and with a slight bitter taste in their mouths, were Martínez & Via-Dufresne, finishing at 10:52 a.m. They should, however, be proud of a remarkable performance, as they maintained the lead of the race until just a few hours before the finish, and dictated the pace to the entire fleet for almost the entire course of the race.

Ten minutes after the Iberian crew, Claudia Rossi & Matteo Mason (ITA) finished a long race in pursuit of the first three; an excellent effort considering they were making their debut on the L30.
 
The strength of the teams is shown by the fact that even the seventh team crossed the finish line within four hours of the winners; only one team couldn’t finish. 
 
1. Team FRA   65h 46min 37sec
2. Team BEL   +1h 19min 19sec
3. Team ESP   +1h 31min 39sec
4. Team ITA   +1h 41min 47sec
5. Team GER  +2h 28min 31sec
6. Team NED  +2h 39min 36sec
7. Team GBR  +4h 09min 49sec
8. Team IRL    DNF
9. Team MON  DNS