The seventh Ledro Champions Cup, now sponsored by Carpisa, for Optimist team-racing by club teams again showed that international racing need not be just for the hot-shots.

The fifteen teams, each of which had won its national team-racing championship, represented a wide range of clubs from the famous such as El Masnou (ESP) to much smaller clubs such as Radolfzell (GER) from the Untersee of Lake Constance. The sailors too are from a wide range of levels and certainly the majority were not "full internationals": the winners C. Tevere Remo included no Worlds sailors.

The hosts, A.V. Lago di Ledro, match the spirit of the participants. A small club on a small (3km x 1 km) lake in a remote mountain valley calls on the help of a high proportion of its 120 members (as well as from neighbouring Fraglia Vela Riva) to run superb events. This year they have bought 40 Optimists, jointly sponsored by what might translate into English as the union of parish councils of the valley (population 4,500) and the local farmers' bank.

This track record has led to the decision this year to hold the Optimist European Team-Racing Championship at the club for the next three years. This will be sponsored by the provincial government of Trentino and, like the Ledro Cup, offers free entry and accommodation for 16 teams.

At the prize-giving ceremony IODA president of honour Helen Mary Wilkes stressed that the new event, for national teams, would not replace the inter-club championship and there would now be two events at the same venue.

And next week the club hosts a Women's Match Race event . . . .