Saturday September 24th 2016 the yearly Club Championships were held at the Royal Belgium Sailing Club in Knokke-Heist. At this event, which is always a good practice race for the Open Belgium Championships in October, all kind of catamaran classes participated. It’s clear the Belgiums have many teams that can win events, this weekend it was August Maene/Thomas de Somer to win the Formula 18 class. They were able to beat the current European F18 Champ Demesmaeker who ended in 2nd position. Philip Hendrickx & Filip Olyslager were 3rd overall after some nice battles with the fresh Dutch F18 Champions Francis & Michel Proot.
Sailing conditions were… rare…. when you think about the fact it’s autumn already: Sunny conditions, 13-19 knots of breeze and 23 degrees! It was clear that all catsailors enjoyed this edition of their Club Championships to the utmost. Even the youth (Hobie Dragoons) had some nice battles with the ‘big boys‘. On a downwind course, together with the F18’s, they claimed the right of way. Some of the F18’s had to pull their emergency brake and had were put to the test not to pitchpole in front of the kids.
On the course with the mixed C1 class fleet most of the battles were between numbers 2, 3 and 4. The overall winners seem to have an easy day with 3 wins and one 4th (discard). Patrick Demesmaeker, this time with Morgan Good, finished their series with only one point difference with former Belgium youth team Philip Hendrickx/Filip Olyslager. These ‘kids’ are fast and is another Belgium team to keep an eye on. Next weekend the Belgium Open Championships will be held (October 1-2 2016) at the Koksijde Yachting Club were a lot is at stake. It’s expected many Dutchies will join to grab the Belgium trophee. Also some French are expected to join the battle.
Full results of the C1 class 2016 RBSC Club Championships can be found here (PDF). For photos check the RBSC Facebook album.