Exciting medal races on the final day at Texel and the victory for the German Bernd Flessner, Kasper Larsen second and Damien Le Guen in third.

At 14.00 the medal races got started. In the first race of the day the riders, who were placed from 11 to 20 started with a running beach start and had to make it through the beachbreak and sail afterwards through a 3 mark downwind course. The inside mark was placed in the zone of breaking waves. Young talented Maciek Rutkowski could win the first medal race of the day. Hundreds of excited spectators, who came for the start of the Round Texel race, which were held for catamarans only - 400 boats participated in this extreme long distance - watched the windsurfers fighting it out. The wind was strong, blowing side offshore with 20 to 25 knots. Most of the sailors were on 7,8 or 7,0 sails, some went bigger, like Vincent Langer, who went on a 8,3 and his big 85 cm wide Slalom board.

In the second medal race the top 10 sailors fought it out and again it was 42 year old German Bernd Flessner from Norderney, who took the hammer down and the IFCA Slalom Worldtitle. Big congrats to this great performance. In second came Danish Kasper Larsen, followed by French sailor Damien Leguen.

Bernd Flesser (G-16) dominated day 4 at Texel

Today was the fourth day of the Slalom World Championships in Texel, Netherlands and again the spot at Paal 17 delivered windy conditions. Two races with a 4 mark Slalom were on the schedule. The first one, elimination 9, got started at 13.30. The conditions were tough. Full onshore wind and a rough sea made it difficult to sail very fluid on the race course. Unexpected waves, which built up in front of the sailors stopped the boards or shaked up the whole body gear system. German Bernd Flessner was again the man of the day. It looked like he could accelerate at each moment and managed the nasty waves and chops quite nice. Kasper Larsen (Den-11) managed to make it in second position and young Polish talent Maciek Rutkowski (Pol-23) finished in excellent third position in the 9th race!

Racing action day 4

Race 10, the second and last one of day 4, got started at 15.30. The conditions got even harder. The low tide and a heavy gust forced the riders to switch from their 8,5 uo to 9,3 sails down to 7,0 and 7,8 sails and medium sized boards. The dark clouds went through, heavy rain came down for 10 minutes and afterwards the wind totally dropped. Heat 1, which got started in the meanwhile, had to be abandoned due to the fading wind.

20 minutes later the wind was back, but dropped from 18 - 24 knots down to 11 to 13 knots, what made it quite hard for the sailors to make it even upwind to the starting boat. Heat 1 had to be resailed. A sailing boat, which got fixed at a mark, totally blocked the jibing mark and was the reason for the resail. The beach was massively crowded with sailing boats, spectators, windsurfing gear and tractors driving around carrying gear, boats or catamarans. While the weekend the biggest Catamaran race in the world will take place exactly at the beach, where the Slalom worldchampionships are held.

Bernd Flessner

The closer the second final of the day in elimination 10 came, the less consistent the wind blew. Already in the losers final the fleet had problems to keep on going. But the racecrew measured steady 11 knots, the official windlimit of the IFCA. The sailors kept on going by using the energy of waves. In the winners final many sailors also stopped on the first reach directly after the start due to the light wind. Bernd Flessner again made the best out of and took the victory in race 10, followed by his countryman Vincent Langer, who was on a 85 cm wide board and a 9,3 m big sail and French top sailor Damien Leguen. But the conditions were close to be irregular we would say.

The sailors, who are placed top 20, will compete in the medal races tomorrow afternoon at 14.00. The rest of the sailors already packed their equipment. Excellent wind from southern direction is predicted. Two final heats will be held. The top 10 and the sailors placed from 11th to 20th position will fight for their final result.

Text: Continentseven 2011

Today was the third day of the IFCA Slalom World Championships in Texel, Netherlands. After three more downwind slalom races, with 5 jibing marks, the German Bernd Flessner is still leading the ranking. The onshore conditions with big chop and waves from all directions made it not easy for the riders. The race number 6 was scheduled for 11.00, but got postponed to 12.00, due to a catamaran regatta in the area. The Danish racer Kasper Larsen was the man of the day. With perfect jibes and awesome speed he was dominating the first two winners finals, which put himself overall directly behind the German Bernd Flessner on the second position.

Kasper Larsen

The third race started with a delay, due to a broken rope of a jibing mark. This was not the only mark, which broke or drifted away because of the strong current and waves. The last race of the day was again won by the German Bernd Flessner, who maybe had an advantage being on the big board in the fading wind conditions. And Gunnar Asmussen made him a present catapulting after the second jibe in leading position.

Slalom Action

Day Two from ContinentSeven.com -

Today was the second day of the IFCA Slalom World Championships in Texel, Netherlands. After 5 races the German Bernd Flessner is still leading the ranking in front of the French Damien Le Guen. The first race was again won by Bernd Flessner. After an over early of Flessner and Asmussen in the second race, which brought a lot of discussion, Jules Denel took his chance an won the second race. Before the third race the wind picked up to over 20 knots und you could already see in the foreruns that Gunnar Asmussen had amazing speed and he won the third race, which let him climb up the ranking a bit.

Crash of the day was from the Polish sailor Pawel Hlavaty, who broke the nose of his board completely with a massive catapult.

Slalom Action Bernd Flessner and Gunnar Asmussen

Day One from ContinentSeven.com -

Today was the first day of the IFCA Slalom World Championships in Texel, Netherlands. It was blowing from southwestern direction with 16- 20knots the whole day. In gusts up to 23 knots. The German windsurfer Bernd Flessner was overall today the best, winning the first two eliminations.

Bernd Flessner wins two races Winnersfinal Race 2

The rain just had stopped in the morning and left some puddles all over the venue. At 10 o´clock the first skippersmeeting of the event took place. Bruno de Wannemaker, IFCA honcho, announced two eliminations for the first day. One at 13.00 and one at 15.00 with a lunch break in between. During the first elimination the wind was up, many riders were on their 7,0 sails but it took almost two hours to finish this elimination, due to many protest, which had to be discussed with the IFCA officials. Additionally there were several premature starts, which delayed the racing progress, too. In the end the German Bernd Flessner won the winnersfinal easily.

After the lunchbreak the second race was started in less windy conditions, but still most of the sailor were on their 7,8 sails. This elimination was finished a bit quicker and it was again the German Flessner, who could win this race, although he got challenged by his German racing colleague Vincent Langer and the French Damien Le Guen.

We saw as well a few upsets during the races.

The German Gunnar Asmussen, Maciek Rutkowski, Casper Bouman provoked some over earlies and got high points. The starting procedure is also different compared to other races. The sequence is shorter and in the first rounds, there are no general recalls after an over early. The racers, who were over early get informed on the beach. This is a quite strange rule, as it is enough time to repeat the start and it would be probably more fair. Some riders were complaining about it, because in the race, you never know, on which position you are. You maybe fight to overtake someone and risk a crash, and the guy in front of you is maybe out anyway, because of an over early. This definitely should be discussed, as this is not a fun race. It is a World Championship.

You also can check out more picture on the Continentseven Facebook gallery from the event.

Facebook gallery IFCA Slalom World Championships

Spectacular Worlds Slalom Windsurfing

The windsurfers were early on the beach today and were looking forward to the waves and the strong winds. Today starts the Slalom Windsurfing World Championships. There are forty competitors in total. They will race in heats of ten competitors at the same time.

The weather looks good and the waves are not too high, says Dorian van Rijsselberge, Olympic surfer and broadcaster during the Worlds Slalom Windsurfing. These are excellent conditions for windsurfing, really the best you can have! There are a lot of competitors with equal chances to win, so it will be an exiting competion to follow.

The surfers will continue surf heats until Saturday. Then the best ten will compete against each other in a final match.

NOTICE OF RACE

The 2011 IFCA Slalom World Championship will be held in conjunction with the 34th Edition of the Round Texel Race.

The championship will form a key part of the Zwitserleven Zeilweek (Sail Week) - and the festival of sailing will run from 20th to 25th June.

Hundreds of competitors - catamaran sailors and windsurfers - will descend upon the island of Texel for what has become one of the Europe's biggest sailing festivals. The worlds largest catamaran race, Round Texel, will form the finale to the festival , alongside the Slalom world championship final.

Texel is a municipality and an island in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. It is the biggest and most populated of the Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea, and also the westernmost of this archipelago, which extends to Denmark. Tourism forms the main industry for this island - which has lots to offer to the visitor.

With lots of activities on the beach during the week, plus nightlife and parties , this event is fun for everyone.

To find out more about Texel - http://www.roundtexel.com/content.asp?navid=tx