F18 Worlds 2017 @Vallensbaek: Mischa Heemskerk & Stephan Dekker World Champs

Photo: F18 Worlds , Video Hartas Productions. Pics from today pending  —-
FINALLY !!!- June 2008 we started this blog and the F18 was always had a privileged place. Just look and the labels raking to the left. 10yrs now  reporting on F18s Worlds , also on  Mischa Heemskerk career.
From a close call in Spain to 2008, to another one in 2009 and so on that I lost the count on near misses. But we always said the F18 Title would come its way.  A quick shout to Baastian Tentij, Mischa’s partner for years in the F18.

Later two A-Cats Worlds for Mischa trophy shelves on major events, but we all knew the F18 Title was missing for the big guy.

Now is 2017 Mischa & Stephan Dekker  (Exploder Scorpion / Mischa Sails DS) grabbed the 2017  Worlds Title held at Vallensbaek, Denmark  with epic flare in the last 8 races.
It  was not  that easy , they dropped mast the first day,  average scores in the qualys, but improving. In the last qualy race in 5 knots they finished 3rd, marking a no return point for their performance. They were getting the pace of the boat/rig .
Breeze came for the Final stage and it was total domination for them, first day 3 bullets,  second day 2 more to end the event in  6-8 knots also scoring 2 bullets and 2nd for a change.

Special note to Stephan Dekker, having to endure those in front of mast tacks and tricky gybes on the DS was a challenge , but they clearly had all well coordinated!

One of the most competitive Worlds I can remember. Leaders and podium chancing every minute. My laptop was burning with excel calcs!

Contenders
Patrick Demesmaeker & Gilles Tas (Goodall C2)  maintained the Title at hand at all times, even to race 7. They had the pressure on being favorites and act accordingly, it was too close.
US will be another Chance for them.

Same for Jolbert van Dijk- Franck de Waard (Infusion) , 3rd overall. This team is serious stuff and Jolbert guided by Frank will become even better world class sailor
Mitch & Ruben Booth finished 4th overall  and Danny & Kostas 5th , both sailing a Exploder Scorpion with sails 1D sails. In the top 5 whole event, fighting back after a bad result is not easy and they had many comebacks. It was soo close thinking on final score was tough results for any of the top 5.
Just review final results to see how close these teams were.

Good to see Mitch racing with Ruben again, they were second overall after R7, same for Danny Paschalidis  & Konstantinos Trigonis. great effort for them towards the Title being new to the boat and racing together in the F18. It was too close for them also with  lots of work  and devel involved previous weeks, all worthwhile work done with Marton Balazs / 1D sails.
Hope they continue to race in the Class.

Just looking at Mischa history in the F18 or Lange in the Olympics is a target to keep in mind, things sometime are not that easy,  and it takes time.

For Mischa this F18 Title took more than 10years in the  making. Check great video above and see how much it meant for him.

To crews above add the great  performance of our Argie mates Cruz Gonzalez Smith & Mariano Heuser (Infusion) ,  finished 6th overall  and had chances for podium too. We praised them highly yesterday and today the closed the event with a 3rd. Hats off to them one more time.

7th overall for Simon Norhtrop-Sam Barker (Infusion / Hyde Sails Kent by Simon).
 Simon did  lots of work last seasons with his Loft , now equipping Cirrus R2 (Boulogne went to Tour de france a la Voile) Simon & Sam were fast and even led Mischa around the course in F1.

The surprise of the event were Philip Hendryckx and Filip Oyslager those scared many top notch renown riders! And will be a treat next F18 events.
Final what to say about the Sach bros, I only wish to be able to sail that much, not een to dare racing at top level for decades.

Youths World Champs 2017: Antoine Ferrec & Foucauld Delaplace from France, followed by Jordi Booth & Joan Costa Estiarte.