This past weekend the J22 World Championship was held at the North Sea Regatta in Scheveningen, The Netherlands. Starting on May 30th and finishing on June 4th, 39 boats competed in the championship.
Dutch J22 Class Chairman Rosemarijn Verdoorn had this to say about the World Championship,
FIrst of all, it was an honor to be the host country of the J22 Worlds this year!
It was a lot of work to have everything organized well, but it was all worth it in the end. We had a great week, with changing conditions, lovely weather and a lot of happy people at the end of the week!
We started the week on Tuesday the 30th of May with measuring and registration. As everyone was eager to start the World Championship, there already was a line at 10AM!
We had one and a half day to have all 39 boats registered and measured, and besides the missing of some royalty tags on European sails, all boats got through our tough measurement team. (The royalty tags were directly ordered by the way, a point for us is to find out why those sail makers do not buy the royalty tags theirselves anymore).
It was a scary start for FRA 1444, team Reiner Brockerhoff, since their mast was broken due to miscommunications with the crane team. Fortunately, NED 1273 of Jean-Michel Lautier had a spare mast only 200feet from the race venue, and they were willing to lend it to 1444.
At Wednesday, the practice race started at 1.30PM. It was a good test for everyone to get to know the water, the waves, and the current in Scheveningen, The Netherlands.
It was also a good lesson to see that race committee decided to start every race with a U flag. It was favorable to make a dip start, due to the direction of the current, but this would result in adisqualification. Unfortunately, not everyone knew what UFD (U flag disqualified) meant after the practice race, and did not bother to look it up.
This resulted in a lot of U flags, Black flags and disqualifications after the first two days in very low wind conditions! The first two days were very tricky with light wind (6 knots) and almost 2 knots of current. The upper mark was not easy to reach, which resulted in busy upper marks, with boats trying to get to the upper mark after multiple tacks.
On Thursday we had an opening diner for all J22 competitors, and a party organized by the J22 class on Friday. On Saturday we had an open bar for all J22 sailors and their relatives and friends, partly sponsored by the German Class Association as well! It was great to get to know all the teams from all over the world.
Saturday and Sunday saw heavy wind conditions and real North Sea Waves, the opposite of the first two days of racing. We even started the day with rain, after a couple of days of sunny weather. These changing conditions caused changes in the overall results.
The Dutch J22 Class Associations wants to thank all the competitors for their participation and competitive sailing. We appreciate that so many teams took the effort to travel to The Netherlands. We also want to thank the event organization and our Worlds committee.
And congratulations to the winners!
Nic Bol and his team from The Netherlands is the new J22 World Champion!
Second place for Jean Michel Lautier and his team, and Third is Hans Duetz with team.
Our facebook page with photos and updates:
https://nl-nl.facebook.com/DJ22CA/
The event page with results and photos: http://manage2sail.com/en-US/event/863417e5-a5f3-4f6d-a531-d5f563b2a0ff#!/results?classId=5571ffd8-4469-45d4-b997-e14312067d79