Xero Shoes supplied the Sailing Munich team with HFS for The Croatia Coastal Cup, a classic middle-distance sailing race.
Xero Shoes supplied the Sailing Munich team with HFS for The Croatia Coastal Cup, a classic middle-distance sailing race. The Croatia Coastal Cup is a competition that takes place every three years together with the Austrian ORC Championship.
The team found Xero Shoes very light and comfortable, with the distinct feeling of being barefoot, which is perfect for sailing.
We sailors love to sail without shoes, for the feeling of freedom and more security when walking and feeling the boat. However sailing barefoot is dangerous because besides having the possibility of kicking in several metal parts, after a few hours barefoot, with wet feet, you lose sensation in your feet. That’s why Xero Shoes made a great shoe for our team in this competition!
After four different competitions, the Sailing Munich Team finished the championship in 3rd Position with 9pts, tied with two other boats.
Skipper Leonardo Cunha recounts the team’s experience at the Croatian Coastal Cup:
The start of the first race took place in Biograd with 47 boats and light wind conditions. The entire race was hotly contested with leader changes happening all the time. The Sailing Team Sailing Munich team led 7 hours of the nearly 21 hours of competition until they were overtaken at the finish line, because the area had no wind.
Long Distance (24 hours)
During the night, together with my crew formed exclusively by students, we opted for a different route from the rest of the fleet. Fortunately it was the right decision, as we jumped from sixth position to first position. We held this first position for the last six hours of the race, dropping to second position just a few meters from the finish line.
Barla-Sota
These short races need to be perfect as the time for any recovery is very short. At our start, we had a touch with another boat and we had a penalty to be paid. This penalty consists of a 360-degree turn. After the penalty was paid, we found that we had dropped to the last position and started a recovery race, on the last lap we had already overtaken all the boats, with that we won the second race.
With these results we became the leaders of the championship.
The last race was a long race from Split towards Biograd. In the first hours of the race, the wind completely stopped and we stayed for five hours in the same region, some boats managed to enjoy the breeze from the coast and moved away from the other boats. By the end of the night, we were in last place and we would need a recovery race again. With the dawn and strong winds, we started to pass boat to boat which generated positive comments from other teams on the radio. At 11 am, we were already in third position and securing the championship title, but we had problems with one of the sails. To make the repair and get back into the race, we lost 15 minutes and three positions, dropping to sixth place.
“I’m very proud of all the effort of our team in which they never gave up. Even though it’s a team made up of students and who have never participated in a regatta –I’m the only one on board with regatta experience – it was a fantastic result. We were sailing against other teams that have been sailing together for 4-5 years. Some German and Austrian teams are interested in training together with our team before starting the 2023 regatta calendar.”
About the Sailing Munich Team
The Sailing Munich team is made up entirely of students who started sailing with Leonardo at his sailing school. This year’s team featured sailors between the ages of 30-50, including an architect, doctor, and lawyer. They have never sailed before, then learned to sail, obtained their certifications and today have adopted sailing as a lifestyle.
The Sailing Munich Team trained for the Croatian Coastal Cup on Lake Starnbergsee in Munich, and at Lago di Garda in Italy.
More About Leonardo Cunha
I’ve been sailing since I was 7 years old, I started sailing in Rio de Janeiro and I’ve sailed in practically all the Olympic classes. I became a coach with 02 Worlds Titles and in 2010 I started with Sailing Munich. The idea has always been to share my passion for sailing and try to bring as many people to this sport as possible. I teach my students the same way I learned, that is, always sailing on the boat, always practicing. Today, in addition to classes at Lake Starnbergsee and Lago di Garda, we have courses in Croatia, Greece, Sicily, Sardegna and at the end of the year we cross the Atlantic with students, departing from Spain or France towards the Caribbean.
