Pols and Larsen from organizers to competitors

Xander Pols and Sascha Larsen spent lots of time on organizing the Nacra Championships behind the scenes. “Thanks to our group of enthusiastic volunteers, we are able to compete these days”, the duo said on the Texel beach. And they did well today in the Nacra 20 carbon. In race 2 and 3 they were second. “Race one did even go better”, tells Xander. “We were first over de finish line, but then we heard about our OCS. In race 2 and 3 we were match racing with Mitch Booth. Unfortunately we lost both races to him. But we feel lucky to match race against Mitch and leave the rest of the fleet way behind us. Mitch is considered one of the best catracers in the world. So we did well.”

Close call
So that left two teams racing each other. Both races it was very close, but Mitch and Olivier took the bullets. “We don’t mind sailing against Mitch”, says Xander. “It is good for our spirit and our goal. Otherwise we were alone ahead of the fleet. Now we raced faster and that also inspires the rest of the competitors. It is good Mitch came over.”

Xander and Sascha were a bit surprised about their scores. Considering the time they spent together in the Nacra 20. Sascha: “Together with Stefan Dubbeldam we are a team of three. Because we both have kids and very busy jobs we can’t race every weekend. So we changed the setting. Xander and I haven’t raced very much as a team and we have a brand new boat. It came out of the box three weeks ago. I’ve raced four times on this kind of boat and Xander two times.”

At the helm
The problem is that we both are helmsmen”, explains Xander. “I’ve been at the helm the first two races. The last one in the morning, we switched and I folded myself in the trapeze. Luckily Sascha didn’t beat Mitch, because that wouldn’t have been good for my ego. It was a close call though. We came in second at the top mark and surfed on a wave right to Mitch. We passed him and I could hoist the spinnaker right away. We speared away. Unfortunately he came in on portside at the gate and had right of way. He passed us again and won the race. But we are going to take revanche this afternoon. It’s going to be exciting with the changed current.”