Sailors ready for the United 4 Sailing Workum

This weekend, May 18th and 19th, in Workum: 500 sailors in 400 boats at the starting line of the United 4 Sailing in Workum. It’s the second weekend of racing for this season, a season that started out with stormy conditions. This weekend in Workum the sailors will race for a good spot in the overall scoring. With predicitons of a lighter wind, it’s going to be an exciting weekend again.

A lot of participants already know the area in Workum, this spot is part of the United 4 Sailing for years. And the annual Dutch Youth Regatta also takes place at the exact same location. For this weekend 8 to 10 races are scheduled, a promising schedule with the current weather predictions.

Two weeks ago the United 4 Sailing was sailed in stormy conditions. The more experienced and heavier sailors were in favour. With predictions of an average of 6 knots of wind and outliers to 10 knots, the lighter sailors have a chance to prove themselves on the water.

Nine participating classes

Saturday May 18th the following classes will start the races: 29er, Cadet, Laser 4.7, Laser Radial, Laser Standard, Nacra 15, Optimist, RS Feva and Splash Blue. The Optimist class again has the biggest fleet with 161 sailors. Belgium Brecht Zwaenepoel is in the lead now in this class, but the Dutch William Zielinski is only two points away from him.

The Splash sailors also have a big fleet, 76 participants at this moment. The Dutch Timme Staal is leading the fleet, he already had the chance to make a bit of a gap of 7 points between him and number 2: Anna Scheffer (NED). With another 9 points difference, Dutch Idsert Kuperus is holding the third place in the overall leaderboard.

The second edition of the United 4 Sailing is an important one for the sailors racing for the overall scoring. This weekend they can close or expand the gaps between them and the podium places.