Heemskerk and Tentij take title

The F18 Europeans has come to a close in Lake Como, Italy

On Friday 13 July 2007, Team Boskalis Heemskerk and Tentij (NED) won the F18 European Championship on Lake Como in Italy. They performed consistently with their Nacra Infusion and ended the regatta with a 22 point lead. Due to a difficult last day, the second placed Boskalis crew Larsen and Dubbeldam dropped to 12th position overall. The British crew of Styles and Crawford finished second, followed by the Frenchmen Mourniac and Citeay. The competitors sailed fourteen races in total.

On the event’s last day, the gold fleet had four races. The wind started weak and picked up to about eighteen knots with many shifts. Mischa Heemskerk and Bastiaan Tentij showed their strength with a final score of two thirds, a second and a fourth. “Especially at the beginning of the week we battled with the British," commented Tentij. "Today after the first two races, we realised the title was likely to become ours. Especially as the Brtis commenced with two bad results.”

It is the first year in the F18 class for 19-year old Tentij. Normally he sails with Dubbeldam, but this season he has been crewing for Heemskerk as part of the Nacra Master Class. Heemskerk is an experienced top sailor and former European Champion in the Hobie Tiger and a bronze medallist at the Tornado Europeans. On Friday evening, Tentij was very pleased with his first F18 title: “It is amazing and hard to describe. I am really happy. We sailed so well. I had to concentrate hard on sheeting. It is a small lake, so all the boats cause choppy water. You also have to watch the other competitors and the shifts, but we succeeded. This made my year!”

“Today, we have lost the game at the starts”, explained Dubbeldam of their drop down the leader board. “It was the kind of course on which you really need a good start. You also needed to go to the left side instead of the right, which was different from the other days. We both did not get it. The whole championship was a tactical challenge. We had all kind of conditions.” According to the 19-year old skipper to be, he crews for Gunnar Larsen and will take the helm later on in the season. “You had to be on the starting line two minutes before the signal. It was possible to make your way through the fleet, but that was hard.” Dubbeldam was also satisfied with his performance: “Of course it was a pity that we had bad last races, but I have learned a lot.”
  
Results:

1-NED - Heemskerk and Tentij, Nacra Infusion (27 points)
2-GBR - Styles and Crawford, Nacra Infusion (49 points)
3-FRA - Mourniac and Citea, Hobie Tiger (53 points)
4-AUS - Goodall and Goodall, Capricorn (77 points)
5-FRA - Vaireaux and Petit, Hobie Tiger (88 points)