JOI'DE VIVRE Wins J/80 One-Designs(Grevelingen, The Netherlands)- The Netherlands offshore and one-design sailors, like their friends in Scandinavia, seem to have a habit of sailing all year-round despite the fact that some form of common sense means you should consider a break-- after all, when the mainsheet freezes in the blocks there's not much you can do to ease it out other than breathing on it! Nevertheless, tradition as it is, the winter series called the GrevelingenCup produces terrific competition and may help explain why young children in the Netherlands sailing with parents learn that you can sail in just about anything so long as you're well-prepared for the "elements".
After
a rainy, autumnal, chilly winter, the sailors always look forward to
those bright sunny, almost warm, days that seem to make it all
worthwhile. In the end, it was the J/111 XCENTRIC RIPPER that won the
GrevelingenCup ORC 1 Class with Pascal van Doornmalen, Giorgio Etty,
Bart van pelt, Bart Van Pelt, Robin Verhoef and Berend-Jan Edens. They
managed to clinch their victory on a near-perfect day, with a nice
steady wind of 18 knots and gusts of over 20 that created a procession
of about 200 yachts from the start, down around the turning mark with a
windward beat/ fetch back to the finish. Their closest competitor, van
der Velden's J/33 QUANTUM RACING could not pull off an upset victory in
the end, settling for 2nd overall. Fourth was Bert Visser's famous
J/109 CAPTAIN JACK and 7th was another J/111, H Zwijnburg's SWEENY.
Rounding out the top ten was yet another J/111 with Koen Cleeren's J-BIE
in 10th.
In
the J/80 one-design class, racing was tight, with lots of crowds at
every mark-rounding. Nevertheless, in the end, it was JOIE DE VIVRE
sailed by class leader Laura Vroon that led the last three races to win
the overall series title-- crowned as J/80 Queen of Netherlands
Sailing! In second was B Holsboer sailing JUUL and in third was H
Everwijn racing ELFJE. Top Belgium team was T de Jonghe on DJ in 5th,
top German team was Chris Savoye on MENTAQUILIBRIUM in 7th and top
Spanish team was E Scheeren on JALAPENO.For more Grevelingencup sailing information Watch the J/80 Netherlands Grevelingencup 2013 sailing video
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