The ISWC Speed World Championships hosted by the Dunkerbeck Speed Championships, on behalf of the class, had to overcome some local difficulties displaying their event at the proposed site at Sotavento. This turned out to be a huge stroke of luck. Bjorn Dunkerbeck and his team managed to improve the event by moving to different locations on the island of Fuerteventura. [more]
The island had for the whole competition period unusually fluky winds from the North East. This meant that, had the Championships been run on the intended site which had light winds and side shore winds over the whole competition, we would not have had any competition rounds.
The best location with this direction turned out to be Punto de Jandia, about as far South as you can get on the island of Fuerteventura. A beautiful isolated spot in the national park accessed via 19 km of unmade dirt roads. The remoteness of the site did cause a headache for the organisers as the GPS units used transmitted data via a mobile phone signal. This was poor in the area and caused delays and some missed runs but the majority of this was overcome. These limitations were worth it though, as 3 championship rounds were held in ideal offshore winds ranging from the minimum 20 knots to the windiest round held with winds over 40 knots and top speeds of almost 43 knots.
The competition as always at this event was fierce but the experience of the top riders shone through with the top spots of the men’s and women’s fleets were won by last year’s winners Twan Verseput from Holland in the men’s fleet and Zara Davis from the UK winning the women’s fleet for a record 3rd time.
Twan was kept honest by very experienced PWA slalom racer new to speed sailing Andy Laufer from Germany in 2nd place who pushed previous winner and event organiser, Bjorn Dunkerbeck who was coming back from injury, into 3rd place on the podium.
Zara was also pushed by last years women’s vice champion Anne Schindler from Germany who finished in 2nd place. Newcomer to the event Anja Kruse also from Germany came 3rd; she didn’t get to stamp her authority on the event due to an injury off the water but has vowed to come back stronger next year.
The Class AGM was also held at the event with all the Committee up for re-election apart from chairman Peter Davis who has two years to run and Jan Hendrick De Bruin from Holland who stepped down and was thanked for his time on the board. Experienced racer and Italian businessman Alberto Possati was nominated and was voted in unanimously to replace him.
