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!
