Challenging start of the United 4 Sailing in Muiderzand

United 4 Sailing Muiderzand - Jasper van Staveren

Challenging start of the United 4 Sailing in Muiderzand

The United 4 Sailing kicked off the season in stormy conditions. On Saturday May 4, Muiderzand was treated with sunny skies and heavy showers. Strong winds made it challenging on the water, fun challenging for some sailors: ”We were able to control our boat in these winds, but many others did capsize”, says Anne vandenBerghe, sailing in the Nacra 15.

Anne sails with Lucas Claeyssens, last year they won the overall United 4 Series. “Today went off with a bad start: too early over the line, so had to go back and start at the back of the fleet. But we managed to finish the race third.” The Belgium duo made up for there mistake at the start and is looking forward to a new day of racing on Sunday. Numbers 1 and 2 in the Nacra 15 are also from Belgium: Nicolas de Vos and Victor vandenBulcke won the first race, the team of Frederic Vandewalle and Morgane de Vos finished second.

The Laser Standard and Laser Radial are the only classes with two races sailed. The Optimist sailors came back ashore after 1 race, bit disappointing for Yanne Broers who would have loved to stay on the water: “When we started the wind was ok, after the gate rounding big wind guts came over. Good to be ashore for now, but maybe we can go race again later today.” Around 14.00 hour the race committee decided to cancel all races for the rest of the day.

Principal Race Officer Theo Smits: “The High Performance course was the first one to be cancelled, there was just too much wind and showers. Happy to have sailed two races with the Laser Standard and Radial, for the Radial we even started the third race. But had to cancel it due to the wind guts. We’ve measured an average of 12 to 13 knots on the water, but in the guts, it could rice to 28 knots.”

Windplaatje zaterdag 4 mei

Less wind is expected for Sunday, Theo: “Predictions now are 10 to 12 knots with a maximum of 14. Hopefully, it stays like that, then we can race according to the normal schedule.” The starting group of the Optimist won’t be reassigned since they only finished 1 race.

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