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2000 Flying Dutchman World
Championships
A podium finish for Britain's John Best and
James Cole (left) at the World Championships in South Africa
has rounded off another excellent year for Banks Flying Dutchman
sails.
In a championship shortened by gale force winds and big seas,
John and James won Race 3 and pulled up to third overall on
the last sailable day, behind Ian McCrossin of Australia and
Hans Peter Schwartz of Germany. John has been buying Banks FD
sails since his return to the Class and used a full Banks inventory
in South Africa.
Our FD expert, Hugh Myers (pictured left powering his FD upwind
at the 1999 Worlds), made John new genoas for the World Championship
including a very powerful "Medium" genoa to suit the conditions
in Durban and also their powerful rig.
John and James also use a full sized triradial spinnaker to
give them a bit more power on the reaches. They can cope with
this very easily as James is 2.10 metres tall, providing plenty
of righting moment from the trapeze! John and James were runners
up in the 2000 British National Championships in July behind
Peter and Andrew Weeks, who also used a full set of Banks sails
to win for the second successive year.
The British FD fleet is quite small in comparison to Germany,
but Banks have been winning there too. Kai Uwe Ludtke won the
2000 German Championship from 47 boats on Ammersee using Banks
sails and is now testing another new spinnaker development.
Back to Reports
and results
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