Texel Dutch Open Day 2: Heemskerk-Tentij on the lead

Photo: Thom Touw – Best pic so far of the texel Racing week by Thom

Photo: Thom Touw
Photo: Thom Touw – Carolijn back to racing with Jeroen on a Viper

Photo: Thom Touw – Gill de Bruyne and Kathy VdB on their Flacon racing with Texel F16 handicap
——Press release sent by Diana Boogards, Full report at RoundTexel.com –
Mischa Heemskerk: ‘The rest of the series are going fine. Good wind, nice sailing and we are also going well. Yesterday we were a bit late with our preparations. By itself you can see that we are in a good rhythm.” They don’t get it easily though. ‘We have a nice battle. In the second race we didn’t know how many laps we had to sail and we were in the lead. Then we stopped to see what the others were doing. In the gate we saw Carolijn and asked her. She told us two rounds en was finishing, but it turned out to be three. We looked at Coen and he continued, so we let them pass to do it right.” On Texel it is about the Dutch championship catamaran sailing by handicap rules. That’s different from the class F18 with more or less equal cats, explains Heemskerk:

‘Normally you can take it easy when you’re in the lead, but with the handicap rules you have to continue pushing. The F18 seems to go down one point every year, for whatever reason. We started with a rating of 105 and this year we already have 100. When I started sailing the Tornado had 100 and that boat was really fast. The F18 class rules haven’t changed, but the handicap keeps going down.” The lower the rating, the faster the boat should perform compared to cats with a higher rating.
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Interesting to note what Mischa is saying about the F18 Texel rating going down every year to match the Tornado 100??
www.RoundTexel.com
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