BELGIUM

Filip Verhaeghe does it again

The 2007 Belgian Open Championships FINN have been won again by Filip Verhaeghe. After a strong performance at the bar on Friday night, he also performed very strong on the water. Rodney Cobb was just one point away from Filip on Saturday after the 5th race. So it was a pity that racing on Sunday had to be cancelled because of the fog.

Jan Bourgois became third; so his entry in the FINN class has been a great success.

Overall this was again a superb OBK: 17 boats from 4 different nationalities, a professional organisation, great duels on the water and a nice atmosphere.  The consumption of the 'leffe' and other Belgian beers reached a new high and the Dutch team proved that they also trained very hard in this area.  The only disappointment was the fog on Sunday.

·  1: Filip Verhaeghe

·  2: Rodney Cobb

·  3: Jan Bourgois

First master was Rodney Cobb, and Evelyn Persyn was de first lady. 

It is clear that the FINN class in Belgium is growing again, both in terms of numbers and in terms of mastering the most interesting dinghy, the FINN.

Filip Verhaeghe wins the Open Belgian Championship 2006

The Open Belgian Championship took place on Saturday October 14 and Sunday 15 October in Ostend under perfect circumstances; 3 till 4 Beaufort of relatively stable wind, a beautiful autumn sunshine and a perfect organization and race committee.

Most Finn sailors were very eager to start strategy discussions in the bar on Friday evening already.  They probably hoped to learn each other secret winning recipe over a couple of glasses of famous Belgian beer, and the result was that a number of them started the race with nausea, though this was not visible in their results!

Filip Verhaeghe immediately showed his mastership by winning the first race.  Suspense in the second race because of an (individual) recall of Filip resulting in 3 boats fighting very hard for the first place whilst Filip was catching up.  Paul Goossens almost lost his lead in this race because of an unintentional swim as the knot of his toe strap became untied.

All the remaining races were won by Filip, sometimes after very heavy tacking duels.  The fight for the third place was very intensive and the difference between 3,4 and 5 was only 1 point after 8 races!

The “classics” sailed very well, and Philippe Carlier even won a third place overall with a very old Vlieger Finn.  Evelien, our one and only Belgian female Finnster, impressed many of here male colleagues with the progress she made after being only 3 months in the Finn class, and she used sometimes her special tricks especially when Dutch sailors came very close.

So again an Open Belgian Championship to remember; everybody enjoyed the event and the hospitality of the Ostend sailing club is becoming legendary!