J/111 XCENTRIC RIPPER Wins GrevelingenCup!

(Grevelingen, The Netherlands)- The Netherlands offshore and one-design sailors, like their friends in Scandinavia, seem to have a habit of sailing all year-round despite the fact that some form of common sense means you should consider a break-- after all, when the mainsheet freezes in the blocks there's not much you can do to ease it out other than breathing on it! Nevertheless, tradition as it is, the winter series called the GrevelingenCup produces terrific competition and may help explain why young children in the Netherlands sailing with parents learn that you can sail in just about anything so long as you're well-prepared for the "elements".

After a rainy, autumnal, chilly winter, the sailors always look forward to those bright sunny, almost warm, days that seem to make it all worthwhile. In the end, it was the J/111 XCENTRIC RIPPER that won the GrevelingenCup ORC 1 Class with Pascal van Doornmalen, Giorgio Etty, Bart van pelt, Bart Van Pelt, Robin Verhoef and Berend-Jan Edens.  They managed to clinch their victory on a near-perfect day, with a nice steady wind of 18 knots and gusts of over 20 that created a procession of about 200 yachts from the start, down around the turning mark with a windward beat/ fetch back to the finish.  Their closest competitor, van der Velden's J/33 QUANTUM RACING could not pull off an upset victory in the end, settling for 2nd overall.  Fourth was Bert Visser's famous J/109 CAPTAIN JACK and 7th was another J/111, H Zwijnburg's SWEENY.  Rounding out the top ten was yet another J/111 with Koen Cleeren's J-BIE in 10th.   For more Grevelingencup sailing information