The Europe - a success story
Facts and figures
The Europe is a classic one-hand dinghy with the logo of a round, blue "e", with a white ship sailing in front of it. The dinghy is despite closed deck and very robust construction a particularly light boat, so the Europe weighs just 60kg ready to sail. The Europe belongs to the international unit classes and has a Yardstick of 116, which means that the Europe can be seen at the same speed as the laser or 420. With a length of 3.35m, 1.38m width does not seem to be much, and for this reason the Europe is also a very agile ship. With its folding sword the Europe has a draught of 0.25 - 1.00m and the mast reaches 5.43m in height. The sails are extremely different from a cut point of view, have only 7m² in square meters in common and are very tailored to the weight of the sailor from the belly. In contrast to the competitor Laser there are some trimming possibilities in the cockpit of the Europe like Outhauls or Inhauls of the sails, the sword trim and also the foot leech, boom downhaul and Cunningham are practically led into the cockpit to the rear for an easy operability while hanging in strong winds.
From the hobby to the Olympic Games and back
The Europe was designed in the 60s as a robust variant of the moths of that time and with an ideal weight of the glider between 45kg and 85kg it can be seen as an absolute all-round one-hand dinghy. Thanks to the hull shape that strongly reminds of larger ships, the Europe cuts through the water and glides quickly. Therefore, the boat class quickly enjoyed some popularity. From 1992 - 2004 the Europe even became an Olympic boat class, the one-hand class for women as a counterpart to the for men Olympic one-hand laser. This led to a professionalization of the boat class and the number of sailing men became less and less. When in 2004 the Europe was replaced by the Laser Radial as the Olympic boat class, the European scene experienced a revival and today again large, colourfully mixed fields of men and women sail for the regatta victories. Up to 200 participating Europes are now meeting at major events such as Kieler Woche.