Flying Dutchman World Championship at Royal Yacht Club Hollandia - Overall
by Casper Schaaf 30 Jul 2018 19:53 NZST
20-28 July 2018
The Flying Dutchman World Championship 2018 is done. There is a new World Champion, a well-deserved World Champion with seven races won out of nine: DEN-21 Jørgen and Jacob Bojsen-Møller. Congratulations to this Danish team! The HUN-70 Szabolcs Majthényi and Andras Domokos ended up on second place and ITA-4 Nicola and Francesco Vespasiani completed the podium on third place.
After the Lay Day the weather forecast predicted increasing wind for Race Day 4. In fact, after leaving the harbour in the morning the wind actually dropped down a little to about the same strength as Race Day 3, around 10 to 11 knots. Two good races were sailed, with the DEN-21 winning both of them. Even before the last race of the championship the Danes were already sure of their title, which is of course a great achievement.
When asked about the key to their success the Bojsen-Møller brothers replied that a lot of training and spending hours on the water is one key and fixing all sorts of details as best as possible is another. This is their ninth World title already, but they still trained and tweaked their boat a lot during this season. That's how they find their superior speed.
Yesterday the last race of this championship was sailed, under different circumstances than the rest of the week. After a whole week of non-stop sunshine Race 9 saw clouds and rain, with a steadily increasing wind. Shortly after all the boats were safely back in the harbour some powerful rain storms swept over Medemblik. The weather gods decided one week of sunny sailing was more than enough. A perfectly timed end to a wonderful championship.
It was a hot, but memorable week in Medemblik. With a complete series of nine good races, Mediterranean weather and steady wind, this was more than most people could have hoped for. Competetive sailing was found not only in the top ten or twenty boats, but throughout the whole fleet, with fair but serious racing. Royal Yacht Club Hollandia has organised the races quite smoothly and with a daily social program on shore all of the competitors and their families had an excellent time.
Next year the Flying Dutchman Worlds will be in Nelson - New Zealand. Hopefully the same sailing spirit will be found there again!
Full results at www.fd-worlds.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/FD-final-total-results.pdf
Photos are available through www.saralin.de
Event website is www.fd-worlds.com