(Grevelingen, Netherlands)- This past Sunday saw the last four races of
the Grevelingen Cup Winter Series, an event that spans 20 races in all
starting in late fall of 2013. In the end, Laura Vroon’s JOIE DE VIVRE
team were declared the overall Grevelingen Cup Champions.The last weekend produced some very tight racing amongst the top boats. Coen van Veen’s NJOY sailed spectacularly, claiming three bullets to take over second place in the series standings. Bernard Holsboer’s JUUL was very close to them in the standings and came out on the last weekend with “knives drawn” hoping to catch them. However, the plan backfired after having contact with JACARE in one race and in another they suffered an OCS false start— as a result their chances for second overall evaporated quickly. JACARE didn’t exactly have their best season, a combination of lack of height and boat speed meant there was nothing on board they could do to overcome this problem.
What was typical of the whole series was that the boats in the middle of the standings sailed very closely together. A single error in the "boat-handling " resulted directly into losses in the standings. The level of competition continues to rise within the class in the Netherlands. In the end, it was difficult to overcome JOIE DE VIVRE’s speed, good boat-handling and smart sailing— congratulations to Laura Vroon’s team on JOIE DE VIVRE! For more J/80 Grevelingen Cup sailing information
In
the meantime, their Spanish J/80 friends down south were sailing the
III Circuito J80 Sotogrande. Where’s that one might ask? Sotogrande is
the largest privately owned residential development in Andalusia.
Originally a gated community, it is located in the municipality of San
Roque, Cádiz, Spain along the famous Costa del Sol. The J/80s had a
beautiful weekend doing some practice racing and training. Here’s the sailing video on their J/80s
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