36th Round Texel winners announced

by Round Texel on 17 Jun 2013 On Sunday 16th of June 2013 at De Koog, Texel, at half past 10 all competitors in the 36th Round Texel Race heard the redeeming word: 'the 36th Round Texel will be raced today!' Due to strong winds on Saturday, the race was postponed to sunday. At 12 am 194 of the initial 288 registered catamarans started in the biggest Cat race of the World. In their Formule 18, Oscar Zeekant and Karel Begemann become the overall winners of the 36th Round Texel.

Zeekant en Begemann: 'it’s the best way to end our sailing adventures together.'

Karel Begemann sailed the Round Texel Race with his former sailing partner Oscare Zeekant, they sailed together for three years until Begemann started the Nacra 17 program and became part of the Dutch Olympic Sailing Team. Before he started the Olympic program, they made a deal that The Round Texel Race would be the last event they were going to sail together.

Karel Begemann: 'It was a beautiful race. At the end Renée Groeneveld and Thijs Visser came close and faster than we wanted too. Which made it pretty exciting. Upwind they are a bit faster than we are, but we managed to finish before them. It was awesome to sail together with Oscar again and it’s the best way to end our sailing adventures together.'

Thijs Visser: 'I so wanted to win this time, but it wasn’t good enough. It’s pretty difficult to win.' Groeneveld and Visser had a spectacular nosedive just up the North, did they hit a sandbank? Visser: 'No, it wasn’t a sandbank. We had a pretty difficult situation right after we dropped the spinnaker. We both stood in the trapeze when we sailed half wind. That didn’t worked out too well. After the nosedive we sailed with one of us in the trapeze, that was the way to go!'

Mischa Heemskerk didn’t succeed in winning the Round Texel Race for the fourth time. Heemskerk: 'It was a beautifull but difficult race. Definitely the first reach with the spinnaker was tricky. I’m actually tired right now, but will be back next year'.

Winners on corrected time based on Texel Rating

Winners Texel Rating <105
One. Oscar Zeekant & Karel Begemann - 2:59:17
Two. Renée Groeneveld en Thijs Visser - 3:01:27
Three. Mischa Heemskerk en Bastiaan Tentij - 3:06:09

Winners Texel Rating >105
One. Christopher Hancock en Alex Young - 2:46:50
Two. Gert Roukema en Michelle van Dorst - 2:47:10
Three. Rogier Duijndam en Sonja Steenvoorden - 2:47:25

More results on the event website