Mandy Mulder & Coen de Koning win the 38th Round Texel Race
by Willeke Aapkes 10 Jun 2015 08:21 BST
6 June 2015
38th Round Texel Race © Laurens Morel /
www.saltycolours.com
Texel was the backdrop for the 38th Round Texel Race, which took place on Saturday 6th June during the national Water Sports Day. A day later, after rechecking the finishing lists, it appeared that an error had been made in the final results of the 2015 Round Texel Race: the winners of the 2015 Round Texel Race are Delta Lloyd Squad members Coen de Koning en Mandy Mulder in their Olympic Nacra17.
Official statement of the board of Round Texel:
Den Burg, Texel, 9th June 2015 – As it now known, last Saturday 6th June, after a fantastic and very fast Round Texel by Paal 17 Events, an error occurred in the end results of the overall winners. Due to human error in the processing of the end results, Matthijs van Assema, sailing in a Prindle 15, was announced as the overall winner. It transpired that, after rechecking the finishing lists, this was unjust, and the Round Texel board has corrected the results. The rightful winners, Mandy Mulder & Coen de Koning, sailing in the Olympic Nacra 17, are very pleased to have been informed of their overall victory.
Since Sunday, the race officer Norbert van der Kooij has done his utmost to recheck all results, gate times and finishing lists. It became apparent that in fact, a Prindle 15 could have won the race on handicap. Due to boat damage however, Matthijs van Assema did not finish the race, but he did sail back to Paal 17 and was therefore not listed in the safety reports as having been 'saved' or 'picked up'. Last Sunday, the race committee and the Round Texel board informed all sailors involved.
The board will do its utmost to prevent these mistakes from happening again in future, but it is and remains a human error, which, in the first instance, was overlooked. On short notice, the Board wishes to honour the sailors involved by organizing an official award ceremony.
Mulder and Mde Koning still happy with achieving goal
Despite neither of them getting to celebrate their first Round Texel Race victory the way it should have been, it's now the overall sense of achieving their goal that prevails. De Koning had the following to say: "Yeah, shame it's a day later, but it's great, this is what I was going for. I've sailed The Round a few times and have come in 5th, 4th, 3rd and 2nd. So for sure this time I went for the win. Great that's how it worked out!"
Mandy Mulder says: "After the race we were really happy, we were battlingwith the F20's, so that felt good. And we were happy that we had come out unscathed, as the conditions were pretty tough. We really wanted to win; after all, it's in our blood. And of course we were disappointed to hear we'd come second. But this is great news; we came to win and reached our goal! "
Van Rijsselberge and Badloe also active on Texel
Besides Mulder and De Koning, windsurfers from the Delta Lloyd Squad were also in action. On the Wadden island of Texel, Dorian van Rijsselberge on a slalom board and Kiran Badloe on a Formula - instead of their usual RS: X boards - battled it out not only for the Round Texel Windsurfing title but also the Dutch Open Marathon Windsurfing Championship.
To the applause of thousands of spectators, Olympic Champion Dorian van Rijsselberge was first away through the surf. However, after 2 hours and 8 minutes, the win went to former Olympian and two-time World Champion (RS: X and Formula) Casper Bouman. For Bouman this meant his first Dutch title. A minute and a half later, it was Dorian van Rijsselberge who finished second. Lagging a bit behind, brother Adriaan van Rijsselberge took third place, with Delta Lloyd Squad training partner Kiran Badloe in fourth. Badloe had a great morning: "This is fun! Really tough though. But I definitely want to do it again. "
Overall Results: (full results here)
Catamarans (finishing time / corrected time)
1. Mandy Mulder/Coen de Koning, Nacra 17, 2.37:01 / 2.38:36
2. Onno Schuitema/Linda Boer, Hobie 16, 3.09:36 / 2.39:20
3. Jorden Veenman/ Frank de Waard, Formula 18, 2.40:46 / 2.40:46
Windsurfing
1. Casper Bouman – 2.08:00
2. Dorian van Rijsselberghe – 2.09:36
3. Adriaan van Rijsselberghe – 2.20:58
4. Kiran Badloe – 2.22:36
Veenman/De Waard win Round Texel 2015 Formula 18 class and are 3rd overall (from Jasper van Staveren)
This year wasn't an easy ride for the 250 cat sailors during the Round Texel race 2015. Wind speeds between 16-25 knots and big waves asked 'full focus and concentration' of them. The whole race was a battle between Jorden Veenman and Frank de Waard versus the overall winners in 2013 Oscar Zeekant and Charlie Begemann. At the finish the difference between both teams was just 30 seconds. Simon Northtrop and Sam Barker, winners of the Texel Dutch Open on Friday, were third and finished just 10 minutes behind Veenman/De Waard.
At 10:30 it was time for the start of the 38th edition of the Biggest Catrace of the world. "It was a mess at the start. We had to find a good spot near the start boat and the beach to have a good view on the flags. Our timing was perfect and so we had a great start. At Texel this is very important because the start determines 90% of your end result. Our speed was good on our way to the Texel lighthouse and we were able to keep up with the faster Formula 20's. From the open water we saw Zeekant/Begemann approaching, but because of their course they were able to hoist the spinnaker a bit earlier and so took over the lead. That's were the battle between the Formula 18's really started. Till the VC-mark the water was really flat and so the speed was going up. Show time...!", smiles De Waard.
Exciting moments
Veenman-De_WaardThe leg from the lighthouse to the VC-mark is notorious: to or not to be, that's the question. The shallow water is dangerous, especially at high speed. Rudders and daggerboards get damaged easily. De Waard: "During the race we noticed that the water level was very low already. From that moment we sailed a bit slower, flipped the rudders a bit up just to save the boat till we reached the VC-mark. Not a bad choice afterwards when we saw William Sunnocks standing next to his boat... the water just reached his knees."
After the VC-mark it was time to go full throttle again. Beautiful battles between Veenman/De Waard and Zeekant/Begemann were a fact and we both took over the lead all the time. But, near the Texel harbour 'Oude Schild' it went wrong. De Waard: "We did a jibe, but afterwards it was a wrong decision. Zeekant/Begemann were able to enlarge their lead towards 'het Molengat' at the western end of the island. This is an area with often big waves and those are not easy to sail at all. We both made it through this waves and from that moment it's normally the question who's able to hoist the spinnaker first for the last part straight to the finish. Unfortunately for Zeekant/Begemann they were hit by a big wave near the beach and tipped over. This was were we closed the gap for the last miles to the finish line."
Undetectable finish boat
"These last battles were really nice, we were in sort of a herd in a hurry on the way to the finish. But that's where the real challenge started: no finish boat at all...? And than we literally found 'the smallest finish boat ever' between all the big waves. And, we made it as first Formula 18 and were 3rd overall", explains De Waard. Everybody is now looking forward to the next big cat sailing event: The Formula 18 Worlds in Kiel – Germany. Expected is that the magic number of 200 Formula 18 catamarans will be reached. Also a lot of the best Olympic catamaran sailors will come straight from their world championship in Denmark to the Formula 18 Worlds. No doubt this is the most popular catamaran class worldwide.
Formula 18 Results:
1. Veenman/De Waard (2:40:46.00)
2. Zeekant/Begemann (2:41:12.00)
3. Northrop/Barker (2:50:23.00)
4. Breur/Everaars (2:52:34.00)
5. Duijnmeijer/Alessie (2:52:42.00)
6. Baas/Jansz (2:53:56.00)
7. Van den Bos/Schrader (2:54:03.00)
8. Van Dam/Van Dam (2:55:01.00)
9. Huntelman/Calis (2:56:356.00)
10. Van Klaveren/Zonneveld (2:56:35.00)
The next edition of the Round Texel race will be on 25th June 2016. Full Formula 18 results here.