Nacra Worlds Day 1, F18: de Koning-Visser, F20C: Booth-Witteveen

Press release- Diana Boogards– Full report at www.nacrachampionship.com
Coen de Koning and Thijs Visser are the early leaders of the Nacra Infusion Worlds 2011, sailed off the Texel beach in the Netherlands.
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De Koning/Visser like ‘technical breeze’: ‘It was a technical breeze with on and off trapeze conditions and oblique waves on the course”, said Coen de Koning from the Netherlands. ‘In the first race, I still had some problems with it, but afterwards we won pretty easily. We did not lead from the beginning, but we just sailed a bit smoother in terms of tactics and speed.” The F18 World Champions of 2009 scored a third after the lunch break, followed by another victory. De Koning: ‘Sometimes we could double trapeze, sometimes not. It was important to look for pressure and stay in it.” It was a long day with five races, so felt De Koning: ‘I am looking forward to my bed.”
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Mitch Booth shows up surprisingly
AC 45 skipper Mitch Booth (AUS) showed up at the very last moment and unexpected. A change of training schedule with Team China allowed him to compete in the Int. Nacra Championship with the Nacra carbon 20. He and his teammate Olivier Witteveen (NED) had a close matchrace battle with Xander Pols and Sascha Larsen from the Netherlands. The pair of teams dominated the fleet of six cats, with Booth and Witteveen winning the bullets. Booth: ‘You notice there are different levels in the fleet. For a lot of sailors the circumstances were difficult. There wasn’t a lot of wind and the waves were higher than you would expect with this breeze. So if you are a moment not really focused than you loose a bit.”

Top five Nacra Infusion Worlds 2011:
1. NED – De Koning/Visser, 13 points
2. GBR – Piggott/Garcka, 20 points
3. NED – Veenman/Van Helden, 25 points
4. USA – Easton/Burd, 43 points
5. NED – Larsen/Frank, 50 points

Top three Int. Nacra 20 carbon Championship 2011:
1. ESP – Booth/Witteveen, 5 points
2. NED – Pols/Larsen, 17 points
3. NED – Rijnsburger/Willems, 17 poins
www.nacrachampionship.com