Mischa Heemskerk Wins A-Cat World Championship

Medemblik, The Netherlands (June 24, 2016) – The final day of the 2016 A-Cat World Championship held two more races for the gold flight, but Mischa Heemskerk (NED) only needed one of them to take the title. After winning the first race, which continued his streak of seven bullets, Heemskerk got a head start on his celebration as he sat out the final eighth race.

Final Standings (Top 10 of 118; 8 races, 1 discard)

Event details – Scoreboard – Facebook

From left: Steven Brewin, Mischa Heemskerk and Darren Bundock.

This is Heemskerk’s second title after the 2012 title he won in near hurricane conditioned is Florida. He takes over the title from Glenn Ashby who won last year in Italy.

In a stunning display of fast foiling, both up and downwind, the Dutchman had a clean sweep in all the races with bullets in each. He had to fend off challenges from former champion Stevie Brewin and Olympian Darren Bundock, but his powerful sailing style – upto 21 kts on one upwind foiling blast, coupled with a certain amount of luck in being drawn in earlier races in fleets that sailed in more wind, made him unbeatable on the new Holland Composites DNA F1. He may have had a harder time in lighter winds as Bundy is famously fast in the light stuff, as were some of the Germans.

However, this year didn’t see the massive time differences between the top sailors and the rest. New foiling boat designs, coupled with new sail shapes in the form of the decksweeper, something that Heemskerk had reinvented and pioneered recently, reduced his winning times form to a minute or two on several occasions.

The next A Class Worlds will be in Sopot, Poland in mid August 2017. Additional report from final day here.