Belinda and Jesse -> #1
Belinda Zanesco and I (Jesse Dobie) sailed in the Hobie 16 European Women’s on the weekend at ‘s-Gravenzande, Holland. We faced tough competition(previous ISAF champion from Austria), and our close friends from Italy, Lara and Silvia Sicouri, but managed to come home on top.
We were racing amongst the hot shots in the masters fleet (same start line), some of them previous top 10 in the open event at last Hobie Worlds in South Africa, and often to our initial surprise we found ourselves beating them to the finish in nearly every race. Considering the conditions we couldn’t help but smile, particularly knowing how fast we could make the boat go against some of the much heavier stronger blokes in big big wind and lots of big waves. It was at least 20 knots with gusts over 25 on Sunday and we weighed in several kilos lighter.
Both a bit match unfit and also having never sailed together before were wondering how we were going to do and are both pleased to say with a load of confidence that we did it and had an awesome couple of days together, to bring home the title just made it even more wonderful!
Our big thanks to Hobie Cat Europe for assistance as always on the boat front enabling us to get out on the water with the latest model 16 fresh out of the box just for us at not too huge of a cost! And also our boyfriends, Aido and Andy for de-rigging each day when we were cold and stuffed.
Final Results:
1st – Belinda Zanesco, Jesse Dobie AUS 9pts
2nd – Silvia and Lara Sicouri ITA 12pts
3rd – Marie Caroline and Mathilde Passet FRA 15pts
