Well, both Bard/Lonneke and Geert/Raymond have chosen to save their boats for the upcoming round tomorrow and leave the racing today for what it is. No wonder as both of them got T-boned during the Dutch open regatta. Geert was blessed by seeing a M20 up close and personal. The M20 crew made a rookie mistake. They tried to force their way in near the upwind mark while sailing on a port tack (their boom was hanging over starboard side of boat). Bloody idiots, what were they thinking, in a 40 + boat fleet that is just asking for trouble. There is some hull damage on Geerts Taipan 4.9 but not too much and he can still do the round itself tomorrow. Bard had somewhat less luck and Geert mentioned that he has a little more damage. Once again a crew on a Marstrom product, this time a Tornado, made the same mistake of thinking that powering up to the A-mark while on a port tack is a good idea. (another bloody idiot) Luckily Bart and Geert feel that it can be patched up enough to let Bard and Lonneke do the Round itself.

There was quite some wind and especially then a crew must REALLY know what they are doing when trying to sqeeze in a starboard tack approach to the A-mark.

Pete and Dee McDowell seem to have been able to avoid the onslaughts and still raced. They will be there doing the Round on their Stealth F16 tomorrow as well. Without a Marstrom footprint on their new hulls.

Several spitfires are doing very well indeed. Several of these Spitfire crews know what they are doing. They are good crews.

The final results for the Texel Ducth open can be found here :

http://rotdominoserver.ti.mon3aan.nl/IIS/finishlists/tdo2005/Final_results.htm

In summary :

67 boats entered, 59 boats scored 2 results of more (were active) :

Placings of the 16 footers (on handicap)

13th spitfire Sproat, Chris Burke, Georgina
14th spitfire Scantlebury, Michael Mr Farr, Alex Mr
39th stealth F16 Mcdowell, Pete Mcdowell, Dee
41st spitfire Beech, John Burke, Hannah 105
46th taipan 4.9 (F16) Ruesink, Geert Haas, Raymond V.D.

Bard Louis / Lonneke Stark scored one race before a collision took them out and they were given the wrong rating and were placed in the wrong start fleet. So their result is pretty meaningless.



Conditions for tomorrow look to be 14 knots of wind (force 4) from the north west. With considerable cloud cover with intermittend sun.

Looks like the round is going to be a reaching drag race for the biggest part. Should favour the sloop boats and H16's. only a small amount of upwind work so the Uni-rigs will be disadvantaged.


Wouter

I am just a few minutes back from Texel. It was a real disaster. I saw more than 10 mast snapping within a quarter of an hour from the place i was standing on the beach. Boats were tumbling like dice trough the surf and over each other. A few hundred boats stayed on the beach, they were right. The surf was unbeatable. Even Mitch Booth and some other professional sailors ( for instance a M20) crashed. If you came through it was a matter of luck. I did not compete because my boat was not ready on time. I suppose i would have stayed ashore if I would have had a boat.
Remarkable fact was that the Capricorn was doing very well. Didnot see many Nacra's in the top.
The winner Heemskerk is sailing a hoby tiger. Line honours for Samama with Tornado

Sjon,
What would you say was the wind strength and direction.
Regards,
Phill

Bard Louis and Ruessink did not participate. They were wise and probably concluded that they could not afford it.
I saw some spectacular crashes of Spitfires, have no names of numbers.
It looked more or less like the D-day 1944 from the beach.

I would say Bft 5 as a mean, but sometimes certainly 6.
Wind is not the biggest problem as you will know. The waves and especially the surf was unbeatable. Looked sometimes as a tsunami. You cannot pass a massive wall of water of perhaps 2 meters high that is rolling over you as a steamwalls. You can only pass it if by accident your timing is right and you don't collide into another boat that is without skipper or that is pushed on you upside down. I can tell you that I saw about the same scenery last year but not so bad. At that time I sometimes could laugh about the slapstick scenes you could see. But this was different, I felt sadness about all those damage I saw. And sometimes I felt a little bit mad when I saw people that had clearly con clue what they were doing. For instance a Dart with 2 rudders in upside position and two people that didnot understood why the boat was turning into the wind every time and why it just didnot sail into the sea and through the waves. And so on. It was a little bit shocking to have all those scenes before you and every ten seconds something else dreadful happened. I wonder when the first human casualties happen. This round was only for the very experienced in sailing through the surf of the North Sea and also with a lot of luck. Mitch Booth even crashed. Experience was not enough.

Wind came from the North West, perhaps about 15 or 20 degrees on the beach. You had to start to the left side. Most people did, but some were thrown on the other bow and then most of the time disaster followed.

]http://www.photoos.net/cgi-bin/pht...&besen=35&xmlac=nl&tpl=[tpl]

www.roundtexel.com

The results are in :

ONLY 124 finishers out of 600 entries and about 2o0 starters !

As sjon wrote it was a battle field.

Two F16's stayed on the beach choosing to not risk damaging their boats

Pete and Dee McDowell on their Stealth F16 did succesfully negociate the surf and started the round. Sadly they were seen pulling in at the harbour of Oude Schild that is on the other side of the island (at about 60 % of the race). It is not known why they pulled out of the race. No major damage was seen from the distance, maybe they decided that enough was enough. Will get back on this if I learn more.

There were several spitfires at this years Round but only 1 finished the course. Probably, some crews decided to stay on shore or pull out along the way as was the general trend.

However the one spitfire that did finish won the open class :

1 | spitfire | Sproat (UK) / Burke (UK) | 2:39:50 | 2:32:13 | = (elapsed time | handicapped time)
2 | M20 | Kerstens (NL) / Smissaert (NL) | 2:37:30 | 2:49:21 | = (elapsed time | handicapped time)
3 | hobie fx one solo | Zwitser (NL) | 2:58:30 | 2:50:00 = (elapsed time | handicapped time)

Note how the difference in handicapped time between numbers 1 and 3 is no less than 18 minutes ! Also note that the Spitfire finished only 2 min 20 sec (elapsed time) behind the M20 after 2 and halve hours of sailing. Once again it is proven than M20's really don't like the Round Texel distance race as much as sloop rigged boats do. It appears that Texel just includes to much reaching and not enough pure upwind work.


Congratulations to Sproat and Burke on the Swell catamaran Spitfire ! (Grandfathered F16)

In the overall results this Spitfire crew scored a 19th place overall.

In the overal results the standing is

|1| 005 | F18 Tiger | Yes | Heemskerk (NL) / Boer (NL) | 2:16:35 | 2:13:54 | = (elapsed time | handicapped time)
|2| 003 | F18 Capricorn | Yes | Kenbeek (NL) / Brouwer (NL) | 2:20:57 | 2:18:11 | = (elapsed time | handicapped time)
|3| 009 | F18 Capricorn | Yes | Geijssen (NL) / Capelle (NL) | 2:21:46 | 2:18:59 = (elapsed time | handicapped time)
|4| 006 | tornado Spi | Yes | Samama (NL) / Leeuwen (NL) | 2:11:11 | 2:19:33 = (elapsed time | handicapped time)
19 | spitfire | Sproat (UK) / Burke (UK) | 2:39:50 | 2:32:13 | = (elapsed time | handicapped time)



And there is a NEW round Texel (elapsed time )record :

2 hours 11 min and 11 sec. (Old record was about 2 hours and 30 min)

Set by Samama (NL) / Leeuwen (NL) ; giving them a 4th place overall on handicap.

They were sailing the Olympic Tornado. (That is the version with the spinnaker and larger mainsail etc)


And remember, you heard it first on the F16 forum !

Wouter

number 2, Kenbeek with Capricorn, flipped over 2 times during the race.

Don't the organisers of this event have an "upper limit" of conditions whereby they abandon the race? I would have thought that the resuting "carnage" on the beach would have had the consideration of personal injury to the competitors rise above the desire to continue with the event. What is the situation of "liability" if there is a fatality and the organisers are found to have knowingly continued the event in obviously "unsafe" conditions. If it looked like those sort of conditions for any event in Australia, I know that any organising body of an event would always err on the side of saftey, even if it left some unhappy sailors on the beach. Their insurance just would not cover the losses if the event went ahead, and they could be held personally liable.

Darryl

I don't think the dutch legal system is designed for personal litigation. The potential liability of race organisers doesn't seem to be an issue. Having that many people on (or under) the water in those conditions would freak out race managers in Oz. Still, they do lots of things differently in Holland, such as allowing dogs in restaurants.

Yes, the Dutch (and UK) legal systems are less "litigation" producing, however the UK system is getting much worse by the day.

Indeed,

You have to decide for yourself if you are up to the task or not. It is called personal responsibility. We don't put signs above fireplaces saying "Don't put your hand in the fire" as well. I think the legal system still assumes that a normal adult doesn't need a personal guardian all the time to tell him what is wise and what is ... ehhh ... unwise I hope we never go to a justice system that is based on endless litigation.

Wouter

any chance of teaching us some of the subtleties of Flemish, Wouter?

What is unsafe for one crew is another crew's new record...so how would you prove it's unsafe?

Wouter is spot on here. It is ALL about personal responsibility.

Darryl, it's your line of thinking that will end it for all of us! Why does it ALWAYS have to be someone elses fault when we clearly do something we should not have!

I don't like big brother telling me what I can and can't do and I certianly don't want the RC telling when I can and cannot sail. That's my decision and my decision alone! If this sport is to scary for you, then take up golf.

I agree entirely Dingram, it's not my opinion but just the way it is becoming as concerns "litigation" today. Besides, your views are a little strange coming from the country that "invented" this system that seems to be pervading the whole worlds legal systems where some smart lawyer can sue anyone else for the blame of something that should not have been their responsibility in the first place
(what the world needs is more lawyers??????)

Wouter even the Dutch have a "duty of care" when it comes to "public" events.
If there is a cliff with a pathway along it and the occasional person uses it to commit suicide, that is surely that persons liability, but if some club organises a "hang glider" competition from that same point, then there is a duty of care for that club to ensure that the danger is "within an acceptable level", and if it isn't, and someone is injured, then they can be held responsible for the consequences - take the credit but also take the blame- (even though there are no cliffs in your “low lands”)

There seems to have been boat damage at Texel, but was there any persons injured? I think most of the crews (over half?) did execise personal responsibility and stayed on the beach but are there any "issues" over contact with the ones who went out?

Think about this; you are on a brand new M20 (the most expensive thing I could think of) and you are in complete control, headding out through the surf, when a wild butt P16, going fast and out of control, T-bones you, putting a rather large hole in your new carbon hull, about mid-ship. Your boat then goes over and the mast breaks in the surf, ripping both main and jib. Your crew tries in vain to save it and in the process breaks his arm.

OK, who pays for that? If anyone is injured, who pays for that? Do the organizers at Texel require some kind of proof of insurance at registrataion?

I hate litigation as much as anyone but if it's my crew and my $30,000 getting tossed in the surf because some out of control nut job with no insurance hit me, I may have to call a lawyer!

I saw a similar incident on a Laser, an old one T boned my buddies brand new boat, first time in the water, "too bad, that's racing" was all he got out of it! To get a lawyer involved would have cost more than a new Laser so nothing was ever done about it.

From the NOR:

14. Competitors will participate in the ‘Zwitserleven Ronde om Texel’ entirely at their own
risk. The Organising Authority will not accept any liability for personal or material damage,
injury or death, sustained in conjunction with, prior to, during or after the ‘Zwitserleven
Ronde om Texel’.

The Organising Authority disclaims any and all such liability.

Each competing boat has to show at the registration office a valid third party liability
insurance policy, racing at the North Sea included and with a minimum coverage of €700.000
per incident.