Nacra Worlds Day 1, F18: de Koning-Visser, F20C: Booth-Witteveen


Press release- Diana Boogards– Full report at www.nacrachampionship.com
Coen de Koning and Thijs Visser are the early leaders of the Nacra Infusion Worlds 2011, sailed off the Texel beach in the Netherlands.

De Koning/Visser like ‘technical breeze’: ‘It was a technical breeze with on and off trapeze conditions and oblique waves on the course”, said Coen de Koning from the Netherlands. ‘In the first race, I still had some problems with it, but afterwards we won pretty easily. We did not lead from the beginning, but we just sailed a bit smoother in terms of tactics and speed.” The F18 World Champions of 2009 scored a third after the lunch break, followed by another victory. De Koning: ‘Sometimes we could double trapeze, sometimes not. It was important to look for pressure and stay in it.” It was a long day with five races, so felt De Koning: ‘I am looking forward to my bed.”

Mitch Booth shows up surprisingly
AC 45 skipper Mitch Booth (AUS) showed up at the very last moment and unexpected. A change of training schedule with Team China allowed him to compete in the Int. Nacra Championship with the Nacra carbon 20. He and his teammate Olivier Witteveen (NED) had a close matchrace battle with Xander Pols and Sascha Larsen from the Netherlands. The pair of teams dominated the fleet of six cats, with Booth and Witteveen winning the bullets. Booth: ‘You notice there are different levels in the fleet. For a lot of sailors the circumstances were difficult. There wasn’t a lot of wind and the waves were higher than you would expect with this breeze. So if you are a moment not really focused than you loose a bit.”

Top five Nacra Infusion Worlds 2011:
1. NED – De Koning/Visser, 13 points
2. GBR – Piggott/Garcka, 20 points
3. NED – Veenman/Van Helden, 25 points
4. USA – Easton/Burd, 43 points
5. NED – Larsen/Frank, 50 points

Top three Int. Nacra 20 carbon Championship 2011:
1. ESP – Booth/Witteveen, 5 points
2. NED – Pols/Larsen, 17 points
3. NED – Rijnsburger/Willems, 17 poins
www.nacrachampionship.com