Training South Africa TEAM BOSKALIS

How it’s done, by team Boskalis

After the trip to Tanzania to do the Tanzacat regatta, the African sailors noticed that the level of sailing in the Netherlands is quite high. Gunnar and Frank made a video of one of their races during the Tanzacat bay races. After watching this footage several times the South African Nacra dealer invited us to come over for a week of training. We only had to think over this for about 5 seconds, and then we said.. YES we come!

A group of 10 very enthusiastic sailors came to Langebaan, South Africa for a week full of sailing. We have to say, what a wonderful place to sail! Everyday a nice breeze building from 8 knots in the morning till 20 knots in the afternoon. Every day we took the Africans out for a sail and coached them on their level. The level of sailors was quite divergent, from a little experienced in catamaran sailing till very experienced in several classes. It was really cool to take everyone out for a ride. We had access to 3 nacra F20 carbons, not very well known in Africa. The biggest fleet is still the hobie 16 fleet, but I’m sure that after this week at least a couple sailors will switch to a more high performance catamaran, once they experienced the real speed of cat sailing.

After all we can say that this week was very successful. We shared a lot of knowledge and definitely increased the level of sailing for this group. We also sailed some hours together after a short break, so some nice training hours are made. Last but not least, we can speak a little Afrikaans now, so from now on we call the plugs in the back of the hulls “proppies,” when you are in traffic we call that “verkeersknoopies” and about the “Pannekoekies” I would recommend to find out yourself what that means.

A big thank you to Nacra South Africa for having us there, and we will definitely go back soon!

We wish everybody a merry Christmas and all the best for 2013!

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