Either this claim is incorrect or the Nacra team has mistakenly provided the wrong Texel Handicap number to the RC.

The F17 (which is known as the Inter-17R in the Texel handicap system) has a rating of 103 and not 107 as used in the results.





Call me a Wouter, but I think that the fact that Peter Vink was sailing the boat had far more to do with the final result (next to the wrong handicap) then any "weight relation". With due respect to the guy singlehanding his rather new F16, no real F16 presence was at the Round Tiengemeente this year. Looking over the singlehander results we note that no 1-up sailors of any fame participated. No Saarberg (A-cat), Lambrie (A-cat) Zwitser (FX-one) or Klok (F16) were there. Only these sailors can be considered to be of a comparable skill level to mr. Vink.

Looking over the singlehander results it is clear that they are a mess.

The first singlehander across the finishline was however a 18 square. The 3rd place holder sailing on a FX-one reached the finish 20 minutes after mr. Vink ! That is a big gap, especially since both boats weight the same. The other Inter-17's in the race, a plain EU inter-17 and an Inter-17XL, were 103rd and 128th and came in respectively 35 min and 66 min behind mr. Vink. Both were soundly beaten by the F16 singlehander as well who came in 22 min behind Vink but beat the other Inter-17's by 13 min and 44 minutes, he was 3 min behind the lead FX-one (after 3 and halve hours racing). A prindle 15 beats a Dart 18 1-up on elapsed time and the dart 18 1-up beats the Inter - 17 XL which in turn is also beaten by the slower rated old EU inter-17. It seems the slower boats are actually ahead of the faster boats on elapsed time ! But how can that be if they are slower boats ? My guess is wild differing sailor skills, with the average level very low so major mistake are made frequently. Either that or the winds were very unpredictable and many flipped one of more times. You would known.

But you were quite fast Andrew, 2nd in the F18 class and a fat 20 minutes ahead of Vink on the line (40 min on the FX-one and 30 min on handicap on the FX-one). Even after handicap calculations you are 10 minutes ahead of mr. Vink and 17 min. ahead if we use the correct F17 handicap of 103. Maybe this is an indication that the F17 is better off at 180 kg and a crew of 2 ? <img src="http://www.catsailor.com/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif" alt="" /> (joke !)

But seriously though, I think mr. Vink is first in the singlehander class because the single hander class wasn't much of a fleet.

Wouter