F18 Worlds 2017 – Young Belgians leading after qualifications

The second qualification day started in rainy conditions with 5/6 knots of breeze. Races were postponed in the morning after one race before the breeze filled in again and the other two races of the day could be held. The young Belgians Philip Hendrickx & Filip Olyslager had a very good day! Overall these guys are leading now and leaving the Sach Brothers (masters) and Booth family behind…. for now. Wednesday July 13th the real battle will begin with a Gold and Silver fleet…. Game time!

Philip and Filip telling us about their days: “From all our 6 starts, both in Red and Green fleet,  the pin was favored  and each race we were able to have a good start. The startline has always been correct, but the shifty conditions made the pin favorite during our start sequences. Our boat speed is generally very good in these circumstance altough the pretty steady wind direction (even when there was less wind) made it much easier to sail ‘hard’ instead of the normal lottery.

But, you guys must have been traing a lot be in Top 3 now? Philip Hendrickx: “After the Worlds in Kiel (2015) and the Europeans in Brest (2016) with 15+ knots we finally had some time to be on the boat together again for a few days. I wasn’t able to do much sailing this year because I was finishing my studies. Filip has been a busy man too, who started his own drones business. But… we were also lucky not being in the fleet with Patrick Demesmaeker (BEL) – the current F18 European Champ – or Legend Mitch Booth (ESP).

We already had a beautiful start of this event, something we are very proud of. We will see how the week will unfold. The weather conditions are looking well, but in Belgium we also know Patrick is much faster going upwind when there’s more breeze. And…. we will never underestimate the Sach Btothers!” The F18 class also has some other top dogs in the Top 10 at the moment. What about Simon Northrop/Sam Barker who won the Texel Dutch Open this year…. or Jolbert van Dijk/Frank de Waard who won the Round Texel in the F18 class and were also 2nd overall Round Texel Winners …. just behind a foiling cat!

For who didn’t notice, the last couple of years we’ve seen that the Belgium Multihull sailors are performing better and better. We also heard this is a results of an intensive Youth Program at the Royal Belgium Sailing Club for many years. In the Netherlands the F18 Open Dutch Championships is often won by their Belgium neighbours… so stay alert this week!

Tomorrow three day of races will start with a Gold and Silver fleet. Saturday we’ll know who can be crowned as the new F18 World Champion and will see his/her name in the F18 Hall of Fame!

Top 10 Gold Fleet:

  1. Philip Hendrickx/Filip Olyslager [BEL] 12.0 points
  2. Helge Sach/Christian Sach [GER] 15.0 points
  3. Mitch Booth/Ruben Booth [ESP] 16.0 points
  4. Paschalidis Iordanis/Trigkonis Konstantinos [GRE] 19.0 points
  5. Daniel Bjørnholt Nicolaj Bjørnholt [DEN] 22.0 points
  6. Patrick Demesmaeker/Gilles Tas [BEL] 23.0 points
  7. Leff Dahl/Terese Antsman [SWE] 23.0 points
  8. Simon Northrop/Sam Barker [GBR] 24.0 points
  9. Jolbert van Dijk/Frank de Waard [NED] 28.0 points
  10. Benjamin Dutreux/Marcel Jr Dutreux [FRA] 32.0 points

Overall results can be found here. (or pdf-file/archive)
Official website of the F18 Worlds 2017 can be found here.
Official Facebook of the F18 Worlds 2017 here.

Video: Hartas Productions
Photos taken from  the photoalbum of the Facebook F18 Worlds 2017