Dutch Nationals Report, 2022

On the 10th and 11th of September 2022 we sailed another successful event on what by now is the Dutch class’s homewaters: Bruinisse. Or did we? Well it definitely was succesful! More than 30 boats having a blast on the water. We just didn’t sail on both the 10th and the 11th. While the weather was perfect on Saturday (8-14 knots), Sunday came to us with no wind and only postponements.

So, just a single day event. But still worth it! Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day and the comittee succeeded in pushing out a 5th race with the bad forecast for Sunday on the horizon. With the Olympian Pim (as always in the 500 accompanied by his sister Lisa) in our midst it was expected of him to gather a whole lot of bullets. Except he didn’t.. Multiple people were making him work harder than ever for his title this year. First positions were actually spread over 3 crews (Pim & Lisa, Jesper & Merle and Anneke & Floris) and especially Jesper & Merle were able to stay close to Pim & Lisa through the entire series of races.

In the end though Pim & Lisa did win out with their class especially showing in the final race in which they were one of the few boats that assesed (and basically the only boat to also execute the plan perfectly) the start correctly in which the pin was unfavored by the wind direction, but highly favored in wind speed. They got ahead and no one ever got close again during any part of the race.

As always the day ended with loads of mussels, fries and beer!

It was great to see the Dutch boats come out in force to what is by now a traditional Bruinisse event, but we hope to see some more international boats again next year. Thirty plus boats we can get on our own, but we love to see our foreign friends again to push it past 40 boats like we did a couple times in the past! So, if you like sailing (I hope so..), mussels and beer; come give us a visit!