22:00, Sunday 10 April, Nautical Club Kalamaki, Alimos, Greece.
OPTIMUM Academy entered all three Dehler 30ods to the first dedicated DH race of the season “Andrea Ziro 2022”. This annual race organized by Piraeus Sailing Club for more than 30 years goes to Poros island on Saturday and returns to Faliro on Sunday. Light to medium winds and sunny and warm spring weather prevailed and made the race pretty enjoyable for the 19 boats competing. OPTIMUM 4, LAVORO and AETHER scored 4th, 6th and 8th place respectively but more importantly raced boat to boat with each other trying different set ups in ORC certificates to find what works best on handicap at the internal debriefing that followed. Evi Delidou and Gerasimos Petratos raced AETHER, Meletis Paterakis and Podromos Petridis raced Lavoro and OPTIMUM 4 was crewed by OPTIMUM Academy student Anastasia Samara and her coach Periklis Livas.
“Team OPTIMUM was well known to me for their long and distinguished path over many years now. As soon as they announced the OPTIMUM Academy offer, I contacted them and we agreed on training and racing scheme to boost my sailing abilities in modern offshore boats. We had a training session on DH mode where we evaluated together my level and set the goals of where I want to reach. As such, this weekend I raced DH to Poros and back. I helmed both starts and 90% in both legs of the race and was coached not only to be effective but learned all the new tricks of the trade the award winning Dehler has to offer. Asymmetric spinnakers on a long bowsprit, square top mainsail, water ballast system, Twin rudders, retractable prop system, cableless rolling staysail, state of the art electronics and autopilot, you name it. I saw them all at “work” on a boat-to-boat basis as we had tough competition with the other two OPTIMUM Academy boats. This offered me the opportunity to realize the effectiveness of the water ballast system as AETHER was rated without water ballast but also see with my eyes the effectiveness of the Code 0 when used by AETHER against LAVORO and OPTIMUM 4 that haven’t Code 0 sails yet. It was a full hands-on experience for me, and my coach managed to increase my knowledge and confidence far beyond expectation. It worth every penny of it and I am excited for more action” admits Anastasia Samara of Piraeus Sailing Club.
OPTIMUM Academy is keen and proud to share 40 years of experience acquired in very many thousands of hard fought racing miles and instill the pure fun and joy of sailing on a top-notch production racer.
You may join too, alone or with your mates. Contact us to discuss your needs as all our programs are tailored made to up your game.