DE KONING AND VAN LEEUWEN WIN NACRA CHAMPIONSHIPS 2008

A fleet of 29 competing teams enjoyed three days of medium to strong wind conditions off the Belgian coast of Duinbergen at the Royal Belgian Sailing Club.

“It was great”, said helmsman Coen de Koning while rigging down their Nacra Infusion. Today, they had a perfect second start on port tack and took the lead by far. De Koning: “Sascha wanted to do the same in the third race and we tried to avoid that by closing the gap, but we hit the pin end and had to take a penalty turn.” Meanwhile, Pols and Veenstra were smoking to the top mark. De Koning and Van Leeuwen went to the left to make up for their loss: “I saw a wind shift to the left and decided to tack earlier to anticipate, which worked out well. Also because many people over stood the mark.” The Dutchmen rounded the upwind buoy in second position and overtook Pols and Veenstra on the second run. De Koning: “We are absolutely happy with our results. This season’s focus was on the F18 Worlds. After winning the title, the pressure was off and it was mentally hard to stay focussed on other events.” According to Jeroen van Leeuwen, they are now aiming for the highest podium finish at the Dutch F18 Nationals in September.

Pushing hard for silver
“We had to push hard”, said Xander Pols. “Going into the final race, we were on equal points with Sascha and Christa, but they had one more bullet. We went to the left side of the course, since we expected a big header. It did come and we were leading at the first mark, but Coen and Jeroen are a bit too fast for us. We cannot keep up with them, so we lost our lead. From then, we kept an eye on Sascha.” Pols and Veenstra had to stay ahead of Larsen/Van Helden to secure the second place overall. They succeeded by finishing second. “That was exciting”, admitted Pols. “It was a great event with beautiful sailing conditions. We are pretty heavy, so we need more wind to perform and we were lucky to get it.”

Team Boskalis helmsman Sascha Larsen enjoyed the final battle for silver: “It was thrilling. Our start on port tack didn’t succeed, so we were very last over the line and then we hit the upwind mark and had to take a penalty. But we managed to come back to a third position, by going to the right side of the course. Xander and Tjiddo did very well and performed steadily, so they deserve to be the runners up of this event.” Larsen with a smile: “And Team Lion King dominates the F18 fleet at the moment. They go incredibly fast.”

German Joy
Besides from the many Dutch and Belgian competitors, there were also three teams from Germany. Karl Diedericks and Gerhard Acthoff said they improved their skills during the competition. Acthoff: “Yesterday evening, we sat together with a few other sailors. They gave us tips and we did better today. So, in the end we are absolutely satisfied with our performance.” The Germans finished 25th overall. Markus Enzensperger and Katrin Brunner came all the way from Bodensee in the south of Germany. They were the only participants sailing on the Nacra F18, the predecessor of the Nacra Infusion, and finished 23rd. It was also their debut on the North Sea. “That was interesting with the strong current and the weather”, said Enzensperger. “But it was also interesting to see how fast the Infusion is. We always counted how many of them finished behind us.”
Gunnar Larsen from Nacra Europe expressed his enthusiasm about the event: “We have succeeded in our set-up. The mix of experienced and inexperienced competitors worked out well. The daily competition was strong, but we had fun in the evenings. I think it was a good experience for all of us.”

Top five Nacra Championships 2008:
NED – De Koning/Van Leeuwen, 11 points
NED – Pols/Veentra, 20 points
NED – Larsen/Van Helden, 21 points
BEL – Demesmaeker/Koopman, 42 points
NED – Moret/Jannink, 58 points