RBSC Club Championship, September 24, 2011

Yesterday was the RBSC clubchampionship and this is one of the last races sailed in Belgium. We decided to lend our boats to 2 youth teams: Arnout & Klaas Viktor sailed Falcon BEL666 and Philippe Hendrickx and Gaeton Bols sailed Falcon USA208. The day started early, 9 AM at the beach to rig the boats and to coach the youth with some light wind tips before they were of to the starting area. Emile De Moor sailed his Blade F16 together with Louis Verstraete, so 3 F16's getting ready in the morning, a very nice view!

Wind was very light and start was postponed. Luckily a little sea breeze settled in so racing could go on! Gill went out on the water on a rib with RBSC Youth trainer Laurent to watch the teams and to take pictures. I stayed on shore, as a true trolley dolly :-)

Sun was out and so were alot of boats! No less than 80 boats made the start. This included 60 cats (the other 20 were all yachts from RBSC Zeebrugge). Of the 60 catamarans there were 4 Dragoons battling it out in the youngest class. With the low winds (5 knots) and the heavy current they had the hardest time on the water. There were about 25 boats in both the C3 and C1 class. The C3 was crowded with youth teams. One of the teams was a youth team from our club, VVW Heist: Gilles Hendrickx and Filip Olyslager. They finished first youth on a third place in the C3!

In the C1 the there was 1 youth team on an F18 and 3 youth teams on F16's! "Our youth" had been training the whole week in medium to heavy wind but they weren't too confident to sail light winds. Weighing 138 kgs Anout&Klaas were the heaviest of the three. In total 3 races were sailed in dying winds and increasing current. Clean air and not overstanding the layline was key but very difficult in these conditions. Because of all the training they did, the Falcon teams were off the line very well each time. It was great to see them battling it out in the front!

With steady top 3 finishes it was clear that they had done great! They even came across the line first one time!

Finally the prizes were given and they ended 1st and 3rd in the C1! Winning against some of the best Belgian teams. They were super proud! (and so were weI!).

Great to see so much youth in the top 3, certainly in the 'dad' dominated C1 class! Full results and all pictures.