Splash Worlds at Stavoren, Holland
by Keith Binns 26 Jul 2003 16:35 BST
A huge waterspout at the Splash World Championships in the Netherlands © Keith Binns
The above championships have been held this week at Stavoren in Friesland in weather conditions ranging from light Force 1 winds to Force 5 plus, with the added thrill on Wednesday of a large Tornado which formed on the Ijsselmeer just 2 kms south of the race area, causing one race to be abandoned by the race officers for safety reasons.
The event went off smoothly using the excellent facilities of the Marina Stavoren, and with the help of the Royal Yacht Club Sneek, excellent racing in glorious weather conditions were enjoyed all week. With entries from eleven countries there was a truly International feel to the meeting.
Racing was close fought throughout the week, with selection races being held on the Monday and Tuesday to split the fleet of over 200 Splashes into Gold and Silver fleets.
In the gold fleet, after sailing fourteen races, sailors from the Netherlands took the first five places, the winner being Sandra van Meyden (1039), with Arnold van Ham (1346) second, third Timo Hagoort (1930), fourth Marit Bouwmeester (1462) and fifth Pim Prins (1914). Best British boat in the Gold fleet was David Jessop (1757) who got a first and second place, but could not maintain this level of performance in some of the stronger wind conditions experienced during the week.
In the Silver fleet Bos Marieke (920) won from Rens Valk (1924), both from the Netherlands, followed by two Swiss sailors, Francois Nicod (1963) and Thomas Mermrod (1964) and fifth being taken by another Netherlands sailor Kelvin Divendal (1351).
Best British boat home was young James Large who managed to win one race but was struggling with the wind conditions mosst of the week. Having only recently come from Optimists James shows promise for future years.
In the Flash Eurocup championship fourteen races were sailed, with all first five places being won by Netherland sailors. A strong winner with four firsts was Stephan Veldman (1488), second being taken by Auke van der Werf (2000), third by Jessica Crul (1600), fourth by Hugo Jan Ruiter (1918) and fifth by Tsjerk Hesling Hoekstra (1794).
Best british boat was Peter Matthews (1962) in thirty-second place.