This years Ronde Tiengemeente is a remarkable one. I've been looking at the final score list.

First some general specs :

185 entries (boats !)
183 finishers
ONLY 2 DNF's

Competing were :

70 F18's
23 F20's
10 A-cats

3 F16's (or 4 F16's if you count the Spitfire) 4
4 Hobie 16's (+ 1 Prindle 16) (so 3 + 1 + 4 + 1 = 9 "16" footers in total)

9 dart 18's (Making the Dart 18 class bigger than the H16 class by a factor of 2 !)

3 FX-ones
2 I-17's


The Bim 16 + spi is a boat I know. The former owner modified it to F16 specs. This Bim 16 has the 8.5 mtr alu mast and so it falls fully within the F16 rule framework that disallows the much younger 9 mtr masts. They had a new mainsail made for it in 2003 (I believe) of full F16 area. This one (14.85 sq. mtr.) is larger than the original sail that came with the boat which was just an A-cat mainsail of 13.5 sq. mtr. This Bim boat however still sails without a jib. So it is a mainsail + spi boat only. And in that light Martien Kooijman and Frank Van Marle did very well.

Actually the Stealth F16 sailed by Bard Louis and Lonneke Stark had just beaten them to the line by exactly 90 seconds after a shy 3 hours of sailing. So on F16 terms, meaning first over the line wins, Martien and Frank came second but they really showed their skill to do so without a jib. You have my respect, guys !

Martien and Frank raced off a handicap number that was compensated for sailing without a jib. This allows them to sail about 11 % slower than a true F16 and this lead to a corrected 2 nd place overall in the open class for boats with a handicap of 105 and higher (of which the other F16's were not part as they sailed of 102)

If all were sailing of the F16 class rating (102 = equal to F18) then both Martien/Frank (Bim)and Bard/Lonneke (Stealth) would be close together at about 14th spot in the 27 boat big open fleet for fast (and therefor spinnaker equipped) cats.

I can't tell you much about the conditions I was not there. I did hear from another crew that the wind died later in the race. Hopefully some of the competitors can entlight us with respect to the conditions.

Another interesting outcome is that 3 A-cats have taken the first 3 placings in the combined overall results listing of all 182 boats. In these days of spinnaker boats this doesn't happen that often anymore.

Wouter