the international moth european championship will be held from 3rd to 6th august 2005 at one of the world's most glamorous sailing venues: lake garda italy. here, we preview the event - venue, top designs and competitors...

venue
lake garda's world famous winds are thermal. it's a tale of two halves...

morning: Peler / Vento (wind from the north)
During the night the rocky mountain ranges cool off and the warm air retreats to the Po valley in the south. A substantial difference in temperature between the cold mountains and the warm valley develops which results in a wind (Peler or Vento) which flows southward through the lake Garda valley.

The Peler can reach up to force 6 and in gusts force 7. The wind looses in strength as the sun heats up the mountain peaks in the morning. So if you want to catch the Peler you have to get up early. At around 9 AM the Peler is usully gone and you'll have to wait until noon before the Ora kicks in.

afternoon: The Ora (wind from the south)
The Ora is a thermal wind which develops at around noon or in the early afternonn when the sun heats up the mountain ranges to the North (the Alps) which causes the air to rise.

Then colder air from the Po valley is sucked into the Garda lake valley and accelerated on its way through the narrowing valley. The wind usually reaches around force 4-5 on the northern part of the lake near Torbole and Riva. The Ora dies usually dies down at around 6 PM.

racing will be held in the afternoon ora wind. the club is between limone and tremosine.

designs
it's now fully the era of the foilers. with predictable 10 to 15 knot breezes, garda will probably not give the lowriders their best chance of competing - light air. there's a possibility of wind too strong for most of the foilschool, but make no mistake the top few will be blistering.

the main interest is foil development. the regatta is the first opportunity to evaluate the two commercially available foil systems: the originals from fastacraft in perth and the innovative immitators from fullforce in weymouth. the profiles are different, the control systems are different but how do they compare? there's always the possibility someone will bring a one-off foil that takes a leap forward - but we doubt it.

hulls, rigs, do they figure? rohan veal and the latest fastacraft customers will bring prowler II a modified prowler with everything shifted forward. the theory is it makes a more stable foil platform, spreading the lifting points fore and aft as far as possible. will this be significant? rigs are mostly standardised around KA sails. the new version complies with the clarified measurement rules and is marginally smaller as a result. this is unlikely to be significant, particularly at a windy venue.

prowler II
forward leaning prowler II. the design is being progressively optimised for foiling.

prowler I
the current world champion design from fastercraft in perth. built for foiling it also boasts the lowest hull weight of any commercially available moth (less than 12kg).

mistress

lines close to the hungry tiger with some neat features: eg low drag ellipticl wing bars and internal foil control rod.

these three are the only purpose built foilers. all the others are converted lowriders, which is not necessarily a disadvantage. best of these is the hungry tiger, undefeated lowrider champion in the pre-foil era.

competitors
mothing takes practice and foil mothing more practice. so one thing's for sure - the next european champion will be someone who has already shown his or her hand on foils. here are our tips...

2:3 favourite rohan veal aus - rohan has swept all before him with his early mastery of foiling and professional approach to mothing. he holds the world and open european titles and is absolutely the man to beat. does he have a weakness? like all champions, the only way is down so maybe a close series would get him rattled?

1:1 si payne UK - si is probably rohan's main threat. a highly experienced and successful 505 sailor with a long moth pedigree. he's been working on fitness and spending a huge amount of time foiling. he knows garda and if he can keep his mind off the gorgeous new supermodel girlfriend he's left behind at home, he will be a tough competitor.

3:2 adam may UK - olympic tornado sailor and professional coach adam, is very near the top of the sailing world. designer of the mistress, he has a technical approach to sailing and clearly will be part of foiler evolution. we have only placed him a whisker behind si because of their form at the worlds and UK nationals.

2:1 mark robinson AUS - another olympic coach and experienced moth sailor. he's not quite matched rohan's pace to date but we don't know how much mothing he has been doing since the worlds. he should be well up.

3:1 jason belben UK - jason is a returnee to the moth class, attracted by the foil development. he's only had his mistress a couple of months but looks completely at home in it and left the foilschool for dead at the weston open meeting. showed well at the UK nationals and could come up with a few surprises.
4:1 ian forsdike UK - like jason, ian is a recent moth champion adapting to foils. he's just getting his set up together and working on new skills so it would be too much to expect a series winning performance this year. certainly capable of taking a race or two.

4:1 linton jenkins UK - builder of the mistress and accomplished merlin rocket sailor. linton's had time to adapt to the moth and test his own foils. he's hard to rate because we've never seen him race. unknown quantity.

and what about the rest. we don't know if the following are entering or what configuration of boat they are sailing. all are potential front runners and maybe we left somebody out? if so please don't be offended, let us know:

john illet aus - builder of the prowler is coming but we don't know if he's sailing

freddy duvoisin sui - swiss moth builder has been at the top in the past.

patrick ruf sui - another fast swiss. is he foiling?

sven kloppenburg ger - capable of winning in his hungry tiger in lowriding mode. what is sven sailing now?

www.int-moth.org.uk will be covering the event live and posting a daily diary