IOM European Champion 2014 – Brad Gibson

And the winner is…..Mr Brad Gibson. Congratulations on retaining the IOM European title after a week of nip and tuck racing in conditions that took many  GBR skippers a while to get used to and saw a few top UK skippers struggling down the board.

Brad found himself in control from the beginning and looked to be building a solid lead as the event went on until Spanish skipper Juan Marcos Egea made a mid week charge up the board to take the lead from the GBR skipper. Through the latter stages of the event the lead changed almost race by race however at the final reckoning BG took the event after 15 races with 68 points from the Spaniard who finished just two points behind with 70.

Third place went to Frenchman Olivier Cohen who was never too far from the top of the board for most of the week.

Current World Champ Rob Walsh came in 5th with a good solid performance throughout the week he steadily climbed through the top ten as the week went on.

GBR skippers Graham Elliott and Peter Stollery made good recoveries during the second half of the week after struggling initially during the early part of the event. They finished the week in 10th and 11th places.

Current UK IOM National Champ Tony Edwards had a mixed week with a couple of great results early on in the week followed by a couple of not so great finishes and concluded the week with some solid results in this tough field of European skippers to finish 17th overall.

Josh King had a good solid week at the office and finished a creditable 23rd overall followed closely by Martin Roberts in 25th and Uncle Derek in 26th who looked very racy early in the week and perhaps peaking a little too early before dropping down the board during the second half of the week.

Graham Bantock didn’t seem to reach his potential and finished the week in 29th place with a couple of good results towards the end of the event.

Remaining GBR skippers Trevor Binks and Greg King finished the week in 43rd and 46th place and like other GBR skippers they saw their results improve as the event wore on.

Congratulations to all those skippers that took part and the organisers for putting on the event in a fantastic location which provided a challenge for both the skippers and the organisers with wind direction changes, currents causing marks to drift and proper waves which is something that some skippers hadn’t seen before!

Well done GBR!

Full results below:

Report by Tim Long