www.comfortina32.de

Dear friends,

I am very glad to announce that AETHRA, my Comfortina-32 with series number 524 (1986) won the Open Sea Sailing Championship of Chania, our town in western Creta, for 2010.  Eleven successful races took place in this championship last year (and a few more could not finish due to weather conditions, i.e. mostly lack of wind), mostly in the spring/winter/autumn months, which, as you know are not that cold in Creta. 10 sailboats of several types took part in the races, ranging in LOA from 9 to 12.5 m and GPH values of 810 to 595 (ORC Club and Int.).

The Cup handing-over ceremony took place on 6 April in one of the old Venetian Neoria in the harbour and it was accompanied by good times and the consumption of the appropriate amounts of food and raki (the Cretan version of Grappa).

The schipper (myself) and the crew of AETHRA are faculty and students of the Tecnhical University of Crete (www.tuc.gr). This summer we plan to participate (for the 2nd time)  in the Aegean Rally, a sailing regatta of four long races between the islands of the Aegean Sea, from 15 to 25 July (www.aegeanrally.gr/contents/eng/indexeng.html). This is an annual 400-mile race and includes visits to some incredibly nice islands, often quite outside the tourist track, and perhaps some "greek hospitality" of the type that has been lost around here since a long time ago.  I would recommend it to anyone who is in Greece in July with his/her boat and a valid ORC certificate, as it is the best experience a sailor can have in Europe in July. Both for the serious racers and the not-so-serious (ORC Club types).

In any event I wish you all a very nice summer season.

Alexandros D. Gotsis

Chania, Creta, Griechenland