We just returned from the Dutch Youth Regatta in Workum where we sailed the second and final qualification for the European or World Championships. Competition was really tough. It was also quite windy, at least on some days.
 
The best news is that my teammate Jonas qualified for the European Championships. He even almost made it to the World Championships. He really sailed an amazing regatta in Workum, following up on his already excellent performance in Marseille where we held the first selection regatta.
 
This year I managed to finish all my races whereas I had as many as three DNSs last year at the same regatta. I also improved my ranking by 120 places. The catch is, however, that I had a very bad second day with four races (44/38/27/11) which meant I made it to Emerald fleet only. We only had two races the first day which went OK (32 and 12) so that didn’t really help a lot. The races in Emerald fleet were mixed (8/2/31/8/19/24/15). I got the 31 after I badly jammed my head on my dagger board. My final rank was 174 out of 391 participants, 29th benjamin out of 110 kids born after 2004 and 28th Swiss out of 63.
 
My brother Niklas sailed his last opti regatta and also ended up in Emerald fleet as well which I found was great fun. He finished just six places behind me.
 
Ranking: http://www.dutchyouthregatta.org/Results/Results-2016
 
Jürg von Allmen shot great photos of us training up for the regatta of which I upload a few below.
 
Coming up next is… a break after five very intense weeks of sailing… followed by either an Austrian selection regatta or a regional regatta early June.

Finally, here's a video of Niklas' and my regatta warmup: https://youtu.be/TsvrLXJbQ2g.