NAVIGA
REPORT on NAVIGA M Section EC 2022 Bucharest, Romania
Dear Presidium,
After 3 years of obligate pause, finally we could hold an Open European Championship in Bucharest. Due to happenings in February and after suspension of the membership of Russia, we had to find new location and organiser federation. Romania undertook to organize the competition in such a short time.
Organizing association: Romanian Modelling Federation
Competition venue: Lake TINERETULUI Bucharest, Romania.
Time of the event: 28.07-03.08. 2022.
Weather conditions: sunny, dry, calm weather, 35-40 degrees.
Water characteristics: Artificial lake, with an average water depth of 2-3m, with a muddy bottom. The random flow of the surface contamination made it difficult for the smaller categories to compete sometimes.
Participating countries: Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Thailand, Ukraine.
Total number of boats registered: 251
Unfortunately, due to the small number of participants, EC titles could not be awarded in F1, F3, Mono 1 Junior, Hydro 1 Junior and Hydro 2 classes.
The catering service and the banquete were disappointing, but it was not the failure of the organising federation but of a single person. There was an incident, when a racer, Mr. Adrian Cuvatov after a brief heated argument with his team leader, who deliberately threw his boat at the judges’ table. According to General Competition Rules, for this action he was banned from the race immediately.
The atmosphere of the competition around the pontoons was good, we could see sportsman-like races. No protest was made during the whole event.
I can only say good things about the work of the judges, they all did a great job. The support staff – buoy judges, manual lap counting, rescue – was provided by the organiser, but the teams of the participating countries also helped from time to time. We got many help from the Slovakian and Hungarian teams. It was also a pleasant surprise, when once the Bulgarian racers came to us, saying they have some time now, they want to help! That was a great moment!
Here I thank the judges for their sacrificial work. Sarah Thiele, Walter Geens, Rafal Nitecki, Razvan Olaianos, Cornel Porcoteanu, Adrian Stolarek, Ralf Thiele.
Also a big “Thank You” to the supporting team. Ioana Dumitru, Leia Olaianos, Sorin Catana, Nicu Chiriac, Daniel Ciosu, Jean Diamand, Rares Gheorghiu, Andrii Muzichuk, Calin Porcoteanu, Marius Racianu (Lap counting, time keeping, bouy judging, rescue boat crew) and the administrative team Márta Gregor, Jacek Dzwonkowski, Rafal Nitecki (Mylaps lap counting, publishing the results and announcements). Also I want to mention, that in order to make this event be possible, the judges did their work on charity! Special thanks to Sarah, who did not even compete, but did pontoon leading the F1 – F3 classes, then did manual lap counting, then worked on the Eco pontoon too. Andrii also came to help only, not competing.
This was the competition, where the so called HAT SYSTEM we used for the first time. That means, we used limiters provided by Naviga in the energy limited categories. The energy classes and limiter makes were coosen by lottery before the event started.
In practice, the system worked well, in no case a race had to be repeated due to a limiter error. There were no faulty connections either, thanks to the correctly designed connection system. To be honest, it went a lot smoother than I expected. There were 2-3 cases where competitors reported a technical error, but all were confirmed to be an error not comming from the use of the limiter, but some other failure in the boat.
All in all, the system is functional. I see its weak point is the possible lack of limiters -because of the ones trapped in sunken boats- that can jeopardize the event, and the limiters left in lost models must be replaced from race to race. (At the end of the event, 2 boats remained at the bottom of the lake, so 2 Naviga limiters were lost. – one was found later, but we still did not get the limiter back from the organiser.)
It is also necessary to solve the regular replacement of both the bullet and servo connectors. The solution to this, as well as to cover the costs of regular replacement of the connectors, is to create a “limiter fund” from the collection of, say, 2€/entry. We have to workout the details untill the next event.
Csaba Dánielfy
Naviga M Section leader