Eurocat 2015, F16: Champs & Youths: Henri Demesmaeker- Alec Bague 1st
Images Yacth Club Carnac / Sylvain Huet & YCCarnac FB page–
When I have to read that chopping off an F16 is the ‘future’ of Youth Sailing (when previously the F16 was pushed by the same camp for Youths), and seeing over and over again all the youths in France, Belgium, US & Australia sailing and racing successfully in the Formula 16, I really get confused on the lack of common sense, as when the other big camp went for the Hobie 16 for Olympics bid at Santander.
Now I have the others guys mad cause I don´t like the Nacra 15 for Youth…
I clearly remarked at the time that the Nacra 17 was THE boat for the Olympics (That brought me the ‘simpathy’ of Hobie & Tornado Camps and some ‘unfriend’….haha) , now I’m convinced the Formula 16 is the place and path for Youths as shown by Henri winning at age 12 the F16 Worlds some years ago, and continue to perform in the same class winning this year Eurocat F16 rankings.
Also check how many race the F18 , read previous post on french youths Perron & Robert winning the F18 division over long time F18 sailors. So who needs a new 15′, a new class? Really? for Youths??
Congrats to the F16 Class for joining efforts, and having top crews and several times winners like Emmanuel Le Chapelier & Eric Le Boudec competing for the podium against the RBSC Youth Squad.
Good work for Bimare on their F16 (first pic above). sailed by Manu & Eric to the podium
Full Results at here
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Formula 16 Report sent by Gill de Bruyne
“What looked like to become an edition with very little sailing ended well with 2 races today and the sun coming out in the end.
For the F16 class this was a key event as we wanted to break with the rating sailing and go for an F16 ranking.
Over the last months we have been grasping what sailors really wanted and most of them were keen on going as F16, with the result that over 15 boats registered as F16.
And the racing was great.
On the Friday we had 15 up to 22 knots and did 3 races. ‘Des conditions cousteaux’ as
the French say.
With the inner/outer loop principle we had a long dogleg which was a survival leg for all teams in the last race.
The Belgian youth teams were fighting it out with Manu Lechapelier for first on day 1. 3 teams had 7 points after 3 races. Another French team and myself followed on equal points for place 4 and 5.
Today there were 2 more races in again windy conditions. Henri&Alec secured the lead with Manu following in second. A great battle showing what the F16 class is all about.
For the class Eurocat was a great success as most F16 compliant boats registered as F16, preferring the class spirit above individual gain with ratings.
A big thanks to all sailors registering as F16 and to Antoine Menieur and Stephane Etienne for the support to make this happen in the rating driven French sailing world.”
Thanks
Gill
