French pair lead Open Hobie 16 Europeans

by Diana Bogaards, on 3 Aug 2007 On Thursday, Christophe Renaud de Malet and Alban Rossollin (FRA) took the lead in the Open Hobie 16 Europeans 2007. The Frenchmen of New Caledonia enjoyed the medium conditions, in which they performed strongly with two bullets and a second.

Bader and Souquet remained in second position overall, followed by yesterday’s leaders Le Gall and Obert. As foreseen by the French, the Germans advanced in the overall ranking. The northwester breeze of about twelve knots was a pleasure for all 127 teams competing in the gold and silver fleets. They are halfway the championship, so this evening it is time for a party on the ‘s Gravenzande beach.

'Winning the first race of the day, is good for your mind', said Alban Rossollin after claiming the first position in the championship. 'There was a pretty big swell and enough wind for one or two persons on the wire. In the second race, we had a bad start at the pin-end. It was chaos and I think we were behind everybody, but we did a good job on tactics in the first beat. We had a great boat speed, both downwind and upwind, and overtook many cats.'

They crossed the finish line in second position. Rossollin: 'There was a perfect breeze in the last race. We had a good start and were leading at the bottom mark.' They stayed focussed and took the next bullet. 'If you are in first position, you are more intelligent', said Rossollin with a smile.

Difficulties

Jerome Le Gall and Enrick Obert had more difficulties today and dropped from the first to the third place overall. They finished 5-12-10. Le Gall: 'My crew was not really in the race. He made many mistakes. I think it was a lack of concentration.' Ingo Delius and Katrin Wiese-Dohse were very unfortunate in the first race, as their trapeze broke.

Delius: 'That was a pity, because we were in fourth position at that time.' They took revenche with a fifth and a third. Delius: 'We were leading in the second race, but halfway the wind died and we were sailing with an extremely stiff rig, so we dropped to the fifth place. It was fantastic to see the British youth winning with so much joy. That is what we try to achieve with young sailors.'

His crew Wiese-Dohse also enjoyed the racing very much: 'It was great fun with more wind.' The silver medallists from the Master Europeans are in tenth position. Best German duo is Wiese-Dohse/Gehrmann is fourth place.

Pleasure

Current ISAF Youth World Champions Richard and Andrew Glover (GBR) surprised the established Hobie 16 class sailors by taking the bullet in the second race. The last one was a bit different. Richard Glover: 'All day it paid to go left, until then. We were on the left side when the wind shifted to the right.' A 24th place was the result, but the Glover brothers did climb to the eighth position overall.

Richard Glover: 'Considering we are youth, I am pretty pleased with our performance so far. We are not very fast on the downwind without spinnaker. That is more patience sailing, because it is a lot slower and all the old boys are used to it.' The new European Youth Hobie 16 with spi champions Lauriot-Prevost/Pervier are sixth overall in the provisional results.

After a long afternoon on the North Sea, the competitors could relax at the Caribbean dinner party on the ‘s Gravenzande beach. Four races are scheduled for tomorrow.

Top five after 5 races:

1. FRA – Renaud de Malet/Rossollin, 11 points
2. FRA – Bader/Souquet, 20 points
3. FRA – Le Gall/Obert, 30 points
4. GER – Wiese-Dohse/Gehrmann, 62 points
5. GER – Bockelmann/Schrader, 64 points

The German team of Quakernack/Ruppel are leading the silver fleet.