The 49er class is delighted to announce the 2015 European Championship will be held in Porto, Portugal, July 7-12, 2015. Porto promises to be a spectacular venue for the premier event on European waters in 2015. Porto is really 3 cities working together as one enabling both cultural and sporting to take advantage of the wonderful setting of a city on the sea and river.
The venue was announced on Friday, April 30, 2014 by the mayors of all three towns, Matosinhos, Porto and Vila Nova de Gaia. The venue base is the new Duoro Marina complex that only a few years ago was not viable to sailing craft. The cities built a breakwater system to protect the river mouth from the ocean, opening up a great launching port and base for watercraft. On the ground, the organization will be headed by BBDouro, a local sailing academy and coach to the Portugese 49er teams.
There are two fantastic race areas the 49er and 49erFX teams will race in. There are many ocean front racecourse areas that will challenge teams with strong winds in both morning and afternoons. There is also an inside course area, where teams can race on the Duoro river, with the possibility of a feature race up and down the Duoro river into the heart of downtown Porto.
Porto hosted the Extreme Sailing Series and some of those photos are indicative of the spectacular imagery that will be created during this championship.
The championships being contested will be each of the Olympic events, the men’s 49er and women’s 49erFX. There will also be the OPEN 49erFX, where male and mixed teams are able to compete in a fun and fast boat that is perfectly suited to youth teams advancing their skills and other 49er sailors who are not competing full time for Olympic gold. With the 2015 World Championship being contested in South america in 2015, the European Championship takes on additional significance as the premier championship in continental Europe in this pre-Olympic year.
Join us July 8-13, 2014, in Helsinki for the upcoming European Championship and then 1 year later join us again in Porto 2015 for the best fleet racing there is.
