
(Brassermeer, Netherlands)- The 'Delta Lloyd Open Dutch Championships'
is an enormous one-design dinghy and keelboat regatta held every year in
the early fall on the Brassermeer in the Netherlands. 210 boats sailed
in 15 different classes, including fourteen J/22 one-designs. The three
day event saw nice warm weather but fairly light winds for most of the
time.
For the first day, many teams in the J/22 class had varying degrees of
success. Sanne Crum-Simons and Dimitri van den Berg withdrew in the
second race which put them back in sixth place. However, they were still
within a shot at the lead if five more races could be sailed.
The second day of racing had shifty breezes of 5-6 knots at the start of
the day, but ended up with 12-15 kts at the end. For the J/22 class,
it was quite clear who the winners were for the day-- Jean-Michel
Lautier, Guiseppe d'Aquino and Denis Neves opened up a comfortable lead
on the fleet. There large margin was mainly due to some bad races posted
by their competitors, like Sanne Crum on NED 514, Nico Van der Kolk on
NED 1455 and Frenchman Charles Michaux on FRA 1444.

The
final day of the championships closed with a sunny ceremony. While
enjoying snacks and drinks, the sailors got their well-deserved
celebration for another fun regatta. Some J/22 sailors even ended
traditionally in the water!! In the end, the Dutch team on NED 1273
(Jean-Michel Lautier, Giuseppe d'Aquino and Denis Nevez) simply sailed
away from the fleet, winning convincingly, counting three 1sts and three
2nds in their eight race scoreline! Taking second overall despite
retiring in Race #2 and counting two bad races (a 10th & 7th) was
NED 514 sailed by the team of Sanne crum, Dimitri Simons and Van den
Berg. Third was NED 1455 sailed by Nico Van der Kolk, Julius Jansen and
Stephanie Peulen. Fourth was the Verdoorn family (Dirk, Jan and
Rosemarijn) sailing NED 1295. After starting with a DNF, DNC, the
French team on FRA 1444 (Charles Michaux, Christophe DeClercq and
Reinhold) sailed very well to capture fifth overall, in fact winning two
races and having the best record for the last six races other than the
winners. For
more J/22 Dutch Open Regatta sailing information