The first national regatta of this year took place in Ascona, Lago Maggiore. It constituted the end of this year’s Swiss Sailing Team activities. We were coached by Antonis and Damir which was a bit strange for me since my home coach Sebi also was around with “my” regional team, including my brother Niklas. We even stayed in the same youth hostel.
Things went pretty well during the regatta. We had OK wind that shifted quite a bit which made it difficult to sail. I collected some top 10 places but unfortunately also a 16th and 13th so I ended up 21th overall. It is my best ranking ever at a national regatta but I was a bit unhappy anyway since I felt I could have done better. I also felt that it would have been better to have taken my sailing gear out of Damir’s car instead of leaving it with him to Lake Garda after the regatta.

Lago Maggiore is excessively beautiful with its Mediterranean vegetation and the snow covered surrounding mountains.

Ranking: http://ycas.ch/pdf/2016/PMOptimistGeneral.pdf.
Photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0o3d72s8wjhwb9i/AADNZBCfHaYY9EZdu-INdMIRa?dl=0.

All photos below were taken by Fabrizio Saudino, fabbaimages.net.

Coming up next is… Easter where I won’t do much sailing but perhaps some skiing instead... and then the national regatta in Geneva.

This year’s Swiss Sailing Team is already history. It ended last week with the third and final training camp at Dongo, Lake Como. On the way to Lake Como we passed by quite vast amounts of fresh snow so our coaches wondered if we brought the right equipment (see the photos below). 
We unfortunately had very little wind. We could only sail on the final day of the camp. Instead, we had quite a bit of theory that I hope to put into practice soon. I also got my homework done and improved both my English and my French (yes, there IS room for improvement ;-)).
It was great fun anyway. I really got very well along with the other kids, the coaches and our team leader Carmen. Some of the older team members will stop sailing the optimist after summer and I wonder what the team will be like then and who will volunteer as team leader - and if I will even be part of it nexttime as well.

Thanks so much, Carmen, Antonis, Damir and Zizi! I really learned a lot – and not “just” about how to sail a boat faster. For example, I learned that it is pretty bad idea to leave my luggage in Damir’s car, especially if it is heading to Riva del Garda instead of nearby Cham.

I've won last year's regional Optimist regatta series, Ruf Junioren Cup, both overall and in my age group. I received my trophies from Marc-Oliver Knöpfel, the president of our regional sailing association Zürichsee-Segler-Verband which is the cup's organizer, last weekend at a regional training camp in my hometown Stäfa. The winners also received some nice gifts from Yachting Systems.

Even though I know that regional competition is not super tough, it still feels good to have two more trophies in my collection.

My brother Niklas became second overall followed by my club mate Nathan. A total of 69 kids participated in the four regattas that constitute our regional regatta series.
Rankings, a report and some more photos are to be found here: http://www.zsv-junioren.ch/home/ruf-junioren-cup/.

The photo below shows Niklas, I and Nathan having fun with our trophies. Our club's president Regula (to the far right) appears to have fun as well ;-). My future 420 sailing partner Nik and my boat (SUI 1751) are pictured as well - reflected by the window.