July 14, 2017
2 minutes reading time
Young Belgiums leading after qualifications - F18 Worlds 2017
The young Belgiums Philip Hendrickx & Filip Olyslager had a very good second day of the F18 World. Overall these guys are leading now and leaving the Sach Brothers (masters) and Booth family behind. Wednesday July 13th the real battle will begin with a Gold and Silver fleet.
The young Belgiums Philip Hendrickx & Filip Olyslager had a very good second day of the F18 World. Overall these guys are leading now and leaving the Sach Brothers (masters) and Booth family behind. Wednesday July 13th the real battle will begin with a Gold and Silver fleet.
Philip and Filip shared their feelings of the day: “From all our 6 starts, both in Red and Green fleet, the pin was favored and each race we were able to have a good start. The start line has always been correct, but the shifty conditions made the pin favorite during our start sequences. Our boat speed is generally very good in these circumstance although the pretty steady wind direction (even when there was less wind) made it much easier to sail ‘hard’ instead of the normal lottery.“
We asked the pair about their training process in order to be in the top three.
Philip replied, “After the Worlds in Kiel (2015) and the Europeans in Brest (2016) with 15+ knots we finally had some time to be on the boat together again for a few days. I wasn’t able to do much sailing this year because I was finishing my studies. We were also lucky not being in the fleet with Patrick Demesmaeker (BEL) – the current F18 European Champ – or Legend Mitch Booth (ESP). Which made it easier.”
The F18 class also has some other top dogs in the Top 10 at the moment. What about Simon Northrop/Sam Barker who won the Texel Dutch Open this year or Jolbert van Dijk/Frank de Waard who won the Round Texel in the F18 class and were also 2nd overall Round Texel Winners.
For who didn’t notice, the last couple of years we’ve seen that the Belgium Multihull sailors are performing better and better. We also heard this is a result of an intensive Youth Program at the Royal Belgium Sailing Club for many years. In the Netherlands, the F18 Open Dutch Championships is often won by their Belgium neighbors so stay alert this week!
Saturday we’ll know who can be crowned as the new F18 World Champion and will see his/her name in the F18 Hall of Fame!
Top 10 Gold Fleet:
- Philip Hendrickx/Filip Olyslager [BEL] 12.0 points
- Helge Sach/Christian Sach [GER] 15.0 points
- Mitch Booth/Ruben Booth [ESP] 16.0 points
- Paschalidis Iordanis/Trigkonis Konstantinos [GRE] 19.0 points
- Daniel Bjørnholt Nicolaj Bjørnholt [DEN] 22.0 points
- Patrick Demesmaeker/Gilles Tas [BEL] 23.0 points
- Leff Dahl/Terese Antsman [SWE] 23.0 points
- Simon Northrop/Sam Barker [GBR] 24.0 points
- Jolbert van Dijk/Frank de Waard [NED] 28.0 points
- Benjamin Dutreux/Marcel Jr Dutreux [FRA] 32.0 points