De Zeil wins student sailing championships

The team from Rotterdam student sailing club De Zeil won the Dutch Student Championships Team Sailing for the second year in a row over the weekend of 21 and 22 May. Executive Board member Bart Straatman also christened the association’s new sailing boat Make it Happen on Saturday, with official sponsorship from EUR.

The Rotterdam sailors achieved a convincing victory on the Kralingse Plas. They came in ahead of Mayday from Groningen and Broach from Delft. A total of five teams participated.

‘Victory no surprise’

Bart Overgaauw sailed as part of the crew on behalf of De Zeil and in his opinion the victory was not unexpected. “Last year our victory was a real surprise. After the first day of the weekend we were in fourth place. This year we took the lead quite quickly. But any victory is always really cool, especially after all tension ahead of the competition. After all, you always want to perform well. That’s why we need to keep a good team atmosphere and be able to cope with adversity.”

In team sailing there are two boats in each team. Two teams race against each other and the team whose boat finishes last, loses the race.

New boat

The new addition to the association was christened during the championships: the Make it Happen sailing boat. Overgaauw is delighted with the new boat, a type J/22. “What is great about this boat is that many student sailing associations sail with exactly this type of boat. This makes racing fairer. The only difference is that there’s a different logo on the boat.”

In exchange for advertising the university, De Zeil received a set of sails and the association receives support for maintenance from EUR and Erasmus Sport.