We are just over two weeks away from the European Championships and it seems more like a World Championships with nearly 80 boats registered.

It also seems like a record for team GB with 17 boats making an appearance. This promises to be the biggest International Moth Europeans to date with pretty much all of the worlds top sailors attending.

Team GB consists of:

May	Adam	GBR 10	Mach 2
Cooke	Mike	GBR 3760	Ninja
Vidal	Olivier	GBR 3620	Ninja
Phare	James	GBR 3713	Mach 2
Imrie	Dougie	GBR 3335	Bladerider
Peats	Jonathan	GBR 3730	Mach 2
Payne	Simon	GBR 1	Mach 2
Oligario	Philippe	GBR 3764	Ninja
Hutch	Jonnie	GBR 3376	Velociraptor
Pybus	Doug	GBR 3614	Ninja
Knight	Katherine	GBR 3021	Home built
Penfold	Tim	GBR 3607	Mach 2
Paton	Ben	GBR	Ninja
Harris	Rod	GBR3467	Fastacraft
Belben	Jason	GBR	Ninja
Barton	Peter	GBR 3758	Ninja
Fear	Martin	GBR 3323	Bladerider

Interestingly, there are 5 Mach 2’s, 6 Ninjas, 2 Bladeriders, 1 Fastacraft,  1 Velociraptor and 2 homebuilds so despite recent thoughts it seems there is a nice mix of designs in the team.

In terms of any kind of form guide, I’m not knowledgeable enough to know the subtle intricacies of what will make a winner in this class so I’ll leave that to the experts. Suffice to say that by sheer numbers alone, team GB should do ok. Whatever happens it looks to be an unprecedented European event and racing should be pretty tight across the fleet. The start line will be interesting with so many foilers which is possibly a sign of things to come.

Notable absentees from the team are Mike Lennon our new UK class president, Ricky Tagg, Jason Russell, Graham Simmonds, Tom Offer and Sam Tozer (who is currently lying 3rd in the RS200 European Championships) amongst others.

Best of luck to everyone and I’m sure with Twitter and the TracTrac system they are planning on using throughout the event, everyone will be kept up to date on progress as it unfolds.