During the months of July and August, CETIL Sailing Team has participated in two regattas to gear up for the Snipe Class European Championship. After the summer, they reflect on their trajectory, in search for mistakes, improvements and making the best of the last training session prior to this regatta in south Portugal, where they will come up against more than one hundred boats in early September.
Two tough days of competition in Gijón at the start of July tested the team’s rapport and mutual understanding after only six months sailing together. In spite of previous successes after overcoming bad results on the first day of regattas, competing to a higher standard on subsequent days, the 2025 Carlos del Castillo Memorial was a very different scenario. With 52 boats on the starting line, the pair notched up a fourth and twenty-third place on Saturday under light wind conditions in which they usually thrive but didn’t manage to use in their favour in a difficult second leg.
Aware that they only had one discard in the four races planned, they left the harbour with no room for error. However, the gusty 14kts that prevailed on Sunday were not ideal for Beatriz and Martin, who finished in tenth place with a third and twenty-first position on the second day. It was a blow to the team’s confidence, who had not seen itself so behind in the list of results since the beginning of the season.
After a month’s rest, the pair returned to the sailing stage to fight for the LVII San Roque-XIII Gran Premio Ramiro Carregal Trophy, in Vilagarcía de Arousa. This championship’s edition had twenty boats, the vast majority of which were Galician, since the regatta was part of the autonomic circuit. The course location had to be moved on Saturday due to the presence of orca whales in the estuary - with light breeze conditions, CETIL Sailing Team achieved a first, second and fifth position in the three races held, finishing in second place prior to the ones on Sunday, just one point behind the first team.
Even though the wind forecast threatened to leave competitors on land for the day, a thermal wind allowed them to race two more regattas, both of which the pair came third in, ahead of their two closest rivals. The weekend concluded with a win for the team, both the San Roque cup and the Ramiro Carregal Prize, trophy awarded to the winning team without discarding any legs. With a positive outlook and plenty of energy, they travel to Valencia for one last preparation weekend before the European Championship in Vilamoura.
