2009 F18 North Sea Championship
The North Sea Championships were held last weekend in Knukke at Royal Belgium Sailing Club. This is a top rate catamaran club! When you walk in straight from the beach, there is a large shiny laquer coated wooden bar….sailors paradise. The wide planked floor has a fresh coating of sand brought in by thirsty sailors. The walls are covered with old sailing pictures of races lore. Of course, no clubhouse here is complete without a Heineken sign adorned in a place of significance.
When I drove over the last hill before the club, I had a perfect view of I don’t know how many cats, many in almost perfect alignment with the same mast rake. Very nice symmetry. The clubhouse is completely surrounded by catmarans of different makes and models, but the bulk of the fleet is Hobie 16s. This operation is so good, they have Land Rovers to pull the boats up from the beach!
The racing last weekend was pretty difficult. The current here is very strong, so it is premium to know what is going on with it. There is a bigtime balance between pressure and direction of the wind against speed and direction of the current. Almost every race on Saturday and Sunday were different because of the changing current and conditions.
The Wildcat is a definite step up from the Tiger. We had more options on the course because of the speed and pointing ability of the boat.
This will likely be a very technical World Championship with the boatspeed to be able to get out of situations. There will be tricks teams find out about the conditions/current that will make big gains. I’m not going to count how many times I say, “How the hell did that just happen.” If there is lighter breeze during the Worlds like last weekend, there will be a lot of lead changes, making exciting action. We all know who the frontrunners are, so all that is to be done is the racing. Hopefully, I’ll be able to post follow-ups, but…well….my track record isn’t very good, eh.
Heineken in a Belgian club? I don’t think so!
You sure it wasn’t Jupiler or Maes or Stella or Leffe or Grimbergen or one of the other 1.000 beers of Belgium?
Enjoy your sailing here! We’ll have a look at all the 180 boats participating. It will be a fantastic thing to look at. And the party will be great.
Kathleen
Haha! I can’t get away with anything. I’ll take a closer look tomorrow! I’m really looking forward to an excellent week.