Sam, I'm really not sure why it's so deperately important to you to convince people that Wouter concocted an excuse for not sailing the Texel - noone else seems quite as exercised as you by such a possibility.

But if it would make you feel better, perhaps you could help out those of us who lack your powers of recollection - when exactly did Wouter say that his work project would prevent him from sailing Texel? Am I right that that's your point? Maybe I'm wrong, but I thought the issue was finding a suitable crew. Does that seem unreasonable to you? As far as I recall, he expressed the view that his work situation would prevent him from devoting as much time to class activities as he normally does. By all means illuminate this further for us, but I'm just not seeing anything sinister there.

MMT