F18 Worlds @Kiel: July 11-18, Ashby goes for the Title

Iamge: Jasper van Staveren – Past week we informed that Glenn Ashby will return to the F18 Worlds  after a near miss at Bangor 2014. Glenn has 3 titles with Bundock but he still has one pending achievement: grabbing the crown as helm. He already helm in 2009, 2010 with  Spithill, and last year at Bangor with Brett Goodall where they missed an excellent chance on hardware failure. Together with Brett, Ashby is back for ‘revenge’ at Kiel, they are the Nr1 favorites  followed by defending  champs Larsen & van West that will have to put their crown at stake, but this within a 200 boat fleet.

Glenn will be racing A-Class Worlds at Punta Ala in September. Nothing to prove on those grounds, as he has shown last years he is the A-Class Master by excellence. Still many contenders and new flying techniques / equipment might challenge his reign, but fact remains that he always wins no matter the development stage the A-Class has been through.

At Kiel F18 Worlds next week other challengers for the Australians are these top ten candidates (over 200 boats): Sach-Sach (GER /Inf), Zeekant-Begemman (NED/Inf), Reiss-Whitehead (US/C2) , Paschalidis-Dyrssen(GRE-SWE/Inf), Gosche-Pegel (GER/Phantom),  Perron-Robert (FRA/Inf) , Mitch Booth (AUSNEDESP/Wildcat) , Mischa-tbd (NED/?) , Easton-Burd (US/Falcon), Veenman-de Ward(NED/Inf) and I will add the only Arg team this time as 2015 “Dark Horses” : Cruz Gonzalez Smith & Mariano Heuser (Inf) are 2x Arg Champs and currently dominating the local scene, plus a 2nd place at 2014 North Americans.

Argentina 2016 Worlds website will be launched next week and we expect to have some additional big names back as it will be held in October after Rio Olympics .
This year Nacra 17 Worlds are going to be held again in the same or previous days as the F18 Worlds. I still don´t get what is going on with this overlapping, last year was the same for Bangor…….

Official 2015 Worlds Web at f18worlds.kyc.de/
Entry List f18worlds.kyc.de/index.php/entry/entry-list/.

At Kiel several Goodall C2s  are ready for a sail, check this time lapse. 
The C2 has one title till now with Bundock-van Leeuwen wining at Balatonfured Worlds 2011 in Hungary . Goodall as a brand has 2 titles with Sach bros / Capricorn in 2006.

The Hobie Tiger dominated the first years of the Class with big names onboard. The Infusion  launched in 2006 and designed by Pete Melvin grabbed first title back in 2008 also last Worlds in Ireland and it continue to perform for many years to come as we envisioned even before the MKII launch. The same with all latest designs.

But for Kiel 2015 I’ll go with Ahsby-Goodall on Brett’s C2

On Brands/Model we have:
Hobie 7 (6 Tiger , 1 Wildcat)
Nacra 4 (Infusion)
Goodall 2 (Capricorn & C2)
Boulogne 1 (Cirrus)
Phantom 1

Below complete list of F18 Worlds , Champs & Designs. For an historical 2nd & 3rd check the list I published in 2009