Tag Archives: regatta

Travel

1000 Boats 45 Nations Sailing On Lake Garda Northern Italy In Largest Youth Regatta

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With a group of keen and hungry “racing kids”, we participated in the huge sailing event that is the “Lake Garda Optimist Meeting” – a celebration of sailing for kids and families from 45 nations, where we tested our newly developed Optimist race sails. At the other end of the scale, vastly experienced “old salts” share their tips and ideas on double-headsail rigs for serious cruising. Thrown in for good measure are our new, cheerful but top quality training sails for the Hobie 16 catamaran.

optimist race sails garda meeting 3
  • May , 2026

The Rolly Tasker Sails “Optimist Team” attended the Lake Garda Optimist Meeting with four sailors, and myself- CEO Sven and former 420 World Champion Dirk as team coach. A huge event and hugely enjoyable, there also was work to be done: testing our newly developed Optimist racing sails.

World’s Largest Youth Regatta

It is the world’s largest one-design youth regatta event, with more than 1000 boats out of 45 nations at the start. Every Easter, thousands of Optimist fans from all over the world gather on the shore of Lake Garda in northern Italy – young sailors aged 9 to 15 years and their friends, families, and coaches. This gigantic sailing event is unique in its friendly, international family spirit but also known for strong competition on the water. Up to 10 races are sailed, splitting the 1000 plus boats into different groups. A real challenge for the organizing yacht club, “Fraglia Vela Riva”, which is masterfully accomplished year after year.

Testing New Racing Sails

This is the “Lake Garda Meeting Optimist”, in which I am very happy to participate. Both as a family, with my kids competing, and as Rolly Tasker Sails. Our overall team of 4 young sailors included our Thailand test sailor to test our newly developed Optimist race sails in true race conditions, also in strong winds gusting up to 26-28 knots. And we are pleased to report that these sails more than fulfilled our expectations, performing extremely well across the entire wind range. 

After a great and successful regatta at Lake Garda, we are eager and motivated for the ongoing Optimist racing season both in Asia and Europe. The next step will be enabling 4 sailors from the Thailand National Optimist team to travel to Europe for the Optimist European Championship in Gdynia, Poland. 

Our research and development for the best possible Optimist sails will strongly continue! For the Silo, Sven Cornelius.

Gaming

VR Sailing At Night

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Back in February we wrote about the superb Oculus Rift virtual reality sailing app MarineVerse Cup. This fully immersive and accurate simulation surprised us with its physics based playset and incredibly realistic sense of actually sailing. (Add a fan moving air into your face and body for an even more visceral experience.) It is a most welcome virtual reality experience.

MarineVerse started development with a focus on regattas while aiming to create what the developers called “a chill sailing game”. Like all robust apps, the developments and updates continued and I wouldn’t be surprised if one day we might see knot tying or rigging etc. as part of their sailing school.

Night Sailing!

The latest update allows VR mariners to try night sailing & boating and experience relaxing sailing under the stars at Akalana Island while testing navigation skills like never before.

Night Navigation Practice

Have you ever sailed at night? Can you distinguish safe water from an isolated danger mark by just looking at its lights? Often a feared outing for a novice sailor in the real world, you can learn safely, at your own pace, and without the fear of grounding your boat and risking your life.

Test your skills in MarineVerse Cup:

( The video doesn’t do it full justice; make sure to try it in VR yourself. )

To access – visit NauticEd Training Room in the MarineVerse Cup and select Navigation Rules. ( If you need a general refresher on Nav Rules, don’t miss this free NauticEd course )

Are you a MV VR skipper or a real world sailor interested in joining MarineVerse? Let them know via Discord.  https://discord.gg/marineverse

Gaming

VR Sailing On Oculus Now More Real With Wave Motions

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Ahoy! VR Mateys! Aaargghh!

Ever wished the MarineVerse Cup felt just a bit more like the real thing?

What is MarineVerse?

MarineVerse mission is to inspire, train and connect sailors, and share the feeling of this amazing sport with a wide global audience all via the virtual reality wonder of the Oculus Quest 2 (& the newer Quest 3) headset and hand controllers.

Through our VR sailing projects we bring entertainment and education together through virtual reality (VR). We create experiences to enable more people to sail through the creation of games, training experiences and more.

We’ve been busy over the last few weeks, rolling out some cool updates to the MarineVerse Cup simulation. 

One of the first new features you can dive into is “visual waves.”

Check out what people from our Discord chat said after giving it a try:

“Waves are awesome!” 

“Wave motion is great! doesn’t make me feel sick 🙂 it’s kind of calming, and it feels a little more like I’m in a real boat”“Strange to say I found it great in free sailing but when I raced with it I felt a bit sweaty.”

“I love the wave action. Adds realism.”

Want to try it out? Just go to the Main Menu, hit Settings -> Boat -> Enable Waves Motion. You can find more details here: 

After you’ve had a chance to test it out, I’d really like to hear your thoughts. Did you enjoy it? Please leave your comments below at the end of my article.

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PS – By popular demand, you can now adjust the wind speed in Free Sail mode, giving you control over your sailing conditions like never before: 

For the Silo, Greg Dziemidowicz  Director & Lead Developer @ MarineVerse – Virtual Reality Sailing