F18 Worlds 2017 @Vallensbaek: Practice Race

Photo by Gavin Reitman. Mischa Heemskerk’s Decksweeper can be seen published entirely for the first time. Same rig was used at Texel by Oskam-Mels. The challenge of this rig perforamance wise  is precisely calm winds racing conditions. The DS mainsail is widely proven in the As, even flaoting mode, and also by Brewin in the 2017 Australian F18 Nats where he excelled in the mid range with a similar DS planshape designed & built by him.

One issue of this type of DS sail for the F18 is the limitation it ads to the crew on each tack/gybe, as it has to be done in front of mast.

Title contenders
On the favorites for Denmark I will go as noted with Patrick Demesmaeker-Tas (Goodall C2),  Northrop-Barther (Infusion / Hyde Sails by Simon), van Dijk-de Waard (Infusion) and on light winds expected also former World Champs, the  Sach bros (Infusion). Super experienced crews with super proven equipment.

Then expectation to see  the Booths, Paschalidis-Trigonis on the Exploder Scorpions, and also looking forward to Heemskerk-Dekker Decksweeper main setup, also on a Scorpion.

And finally would like to see 2016 Vice World Champs, Arg Cruz Gonzalez Smith & Mariano Heuser (Infusion) doing good, they have showed their level in the US (NA vice champs) also in Europe (5th Europeans) and they have plenty experience and they are fast in every condition, 1 to 1 , tough crew to catch.

Sadly Reiss-Whitehead from the US couldn’t`t participate, they were firm candidates also.

Practice race was abandoned due to lack of wind, check footage for conditions. Tomorrow official racing will start 11:00AM local time.

Excellent final numbers of boats racing, with 139. Happy with the F18 Open Project / Scorpion built by Exploder contributing with  at least 8 boats. Check entry list here.

Below video from today. No official pics available at the moment.
Official web f18worlds2017.dk/
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