Paracas Paradise serves up worthy challenge for South American Windsurfing Championships

It was a tough few days on the water as the South American Windsurfing Championships reached the halfway stage with seven races on the scoreboard for the Men, Women and Youth fleets in the RS:X Class and five races for the Techno Class.
Racing on the beautiful waters of Paracas, Peru, it was a day where racing was held towards the upper wind speed limit and where size and fitness would be crucial if any ambitions were held of wining this event. With 8 different nations represented and crucial Pan American Games spots available in the RS:X Class, the racing was tense and thrilling as the all fleets buzzed around the course in high adrenaline, tight, tactical racing on both days. For the Techno sailors, it has been almost survival conditions with three excellent races held on the second day before being sent ashore as the winds became just a little too much.

 

In the Men’s fleet, Arubas Mack Van Den Eerenbeemt claimed the opening days two races with victory in both and then followed this up by winning three out of the five races on the second day and leads overall. Van Den Eerenbeert did not have it all his own way and was chased very hard for the wins by Brazils Gariel Bastos and Argentina’s Bautista Saubidet Birkner who both claimed a race win from the Aruban sailor and Bastos and Saubidet Birkner sit in second and third places overall respectively. The experienced RS:X racers found it tough going in the strong breezes against the young guns with three time Olympian Reutemann from Argentina sitting in sixth with Flores from Venezuela in seventh.

In the Women’s fleet, local heroine Maria Belen Bazo German has had the racing all her own way and has dominated the fleet here and with seven straight race wins. Consistency is throughout the scoreboard for this fleet with Maria Celia Tejerina Mackern from Argentina holding all second places on hers and Bruna Mello from Brazil counting all third places – unsurprisingly they are in second and third overall. The racing has been close and with those three countries battling it out for the medals it will be interesting to see if either Mackern or Mello will be able to take race wins from German and upset her perfect scores.

The Youth had a much more difficult day, with the five races held on the second day being close to the top end of their limits – some very tired bodies were hitting the beach in the afternoon. It is very much a two way battle between Marcos Quiroga and Martin Nores from Argentina who between them have taken all of the race wins. Quiroga sits on top counting five race wins to Nores’ two but the overall points are much tighter and the final two days of racing will be fascinating to watch. Behind them in third is a gaggle of Brazilians with Lobo and Plentz tied on points for third.

Over in the Techno Class, only three races were held on the second day which makes the scoreboard a little tighter. In the Techno Junior fleet, the lone visiting Argentinian of Martin REutemann sits in second and is pushing the leader Peru’s Alexander Grahammer close with only a point separating the top two. Whilst these two sailors have traded race wins, the battle for third is pretty intense with a number of different sailors in with a chance with Peruvian De Las Casas coming out on top after two days.

In the Techno Youth, Peru hold all of the top spots with local sailors taking all of the race wins and locking out the podium. De La Melena won all of the races on the second day, showing just how much he loves the stronger winds, and with more wind forecast will hope to take his dominating form into the tail end of the event. Fellow countrymen Claux and Llerena are very close behind and will be taking any opportunity to overtake. Reigning girls champion, Argentina’s Garcia Guerva commented on the days racing, “My racing was really good today but I couldn’t hold it towards the end as the wind was very strong. I have come here to defend my title and I will try for this in the winds we have tomorrow”. Guerva currently is second girl in the Techno Youth Fleet and is on equal points with Constanza Almenara, also from Argentina.


For the organisers, this event is crucial in the planning for the Peruvian Sailing Federation (PSF) heading towards the Pan American Games which Peru are hosting in 2019. Jorge Barreda, PSF President, is delighted that the RS:X and Techno Classes have come to Peru for the South American Championships, “I have fought hard to bring sailing to this beautiful venue which has perfect winds for windsurfing. This event is a qualifier to the Pan American Games and it is great to be able to show off this venue to visiting sailors and teams”. Qualification criteria allows three countries from the Men’s fleet and three countries from the Women’s fleet to qualify for the Games with Peru as host nation automatically gaining a spot.

Racing continues on Saturday and Sunday with even more wind forecast, not relenting at all and pushing all of the competitors to their physical edge. With another 8 races scheduled and all of the fleets competitive and tight on points, its going to be a tough weekends racing to sort out titles and qualification spots.

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