Lautier Is ONK J/22 Champion

(Brassermeer, Netherlands)- The 'Delta Lloyd Open Dutch Championships' is an enormous one-design dinghy and keelboat regatta held every year in the early fall on the Brassermeer in the Netherlands. 210 boats sailed in 15 different classes, including fourteen J/22 one-designs.  The three day event saw nice warm weather but fairly light winds for most of the time.

For the first day, many teams in the J/22 class had varying degrees of success. Sanne Crum-Simons and Dimitri van den Berg withdrew in the second race which put them back in sixth place. However, they were still within a shot at the lead if five more races could be sailed.

The second day of racing had shifty breezes of 5-6 knots at the start of the day, but ended up with 12-15 kts at the end.  For the J/22 class, it was quite clear who the winners were for the day-- Jean-Michel Lautier, Guiseppe d'Aquino and Denis Neves opened up a comfortable lead on the fleet. There large margin was mainly due to some bad races posted by their competitors, like Sanne Crum on NED 514, Nico Van der Kolk on NED 1455 and Frenchman Charles Michaux on FRA 1444.

The final day of the championships closed with a sunny ceremony. While enjoying snacks and drinks, the sailors got their well-deserved celebration for another fun regatta. Some J/22 sailors even ended traditionally in the water!!  In the end, the Dutch team on NED 1273 (Jean-Michel Lautier, Giuseppe d'Aquino and Denis Nevez) simply sailed away from the fleet, winning convincingly, counting three 1sts and three 2nds in their eight race scoreline!  Taking second overall despite retiring in Race #2 and counting two bad races (a 10th & 7th) was NED 514 sailed by the team of Sanne crum, Dimitri Simons and Van den Berg.  Third was NED 1455 sailed by Nico Van der Kolk, Julius Jansen and Stephanie Peulen.  Fourth was the Verdoorn family (Dirk, Jan and Rosemarijn) sailing NED 1295.  After starting with a DNF, DNC, the French team on FRA 1444 (Charles Michaux, Christophe DeClercq and Reinhold) sailed very well to capture fifth overall, in fact winning two races and having the best record for the last six races other than the winners.  For more J/22 Dutch Open Regatta sailing information