Saturday, June 18, 2016

Beckman Triumphs @ Almere J/80 Regatta

(Almere, The Netherlands)- Enjoying an unexpectedly great weekend of sailing were the J/80s in the Netherlands for their Spring Championship.  In the end, it was the JSB TEAM with skipper Rebecca Beckman that won the Open Benelux J/80 championship.

The two-day event had eight races run for the entire fleet on the Iljsemeer massive lake that is renowned for those who sail huge dinghy championships on its incredibly choppy waters (e.g. square waves that are induced by its incredibly shallow waters).

While the wind forecasters for windguru and windfinder showed unstable and light wind predictions, it was clear they were ALL wrong! Saturday was steady 10-15 knots and Sunday was 15-20 knots from the northeast. Ideal conditions!!

The JSB J/80 Team was able to sail a higher and faster than any other and, therefore, were virtually invulnerable to any of the other teams!  In the end, it was Jorrit Beekman’s team that walked off with the regatta win with four bullets in their last four races to win with just 8 pts net.

Taking second was Peter Paul de Vries crew on LED2LEASE with 12 pts net, winning two races and taking two 2nds to just hang onto the silver.  Just off the pace was Nick Elsink’s J’ZUSTER with 13 pts net, only one point back and having to account for the fact that four 2nds in eight races was not good enough to win!  Fourth was Berend Holsboer’s JEEEH and fifth was Roel & Torsten’s JOYRIDE.