Austria's Keanu Prettner and Jakob Flachberger secured overall victory at the Sailing Grand Slam Almere, capping a consistent week on the IJmeer.
"This is great for our confidence in breezy conditions. We now know we can stay upright pretty much all the time, so that's nice. I'm very happy with how this week went and glad we sailed so consistently," helmsman Prettner said after the final day.
The American team featuring Andrew Mollerus climbed to second place in the standings on the final day despite what Mollerus described as "pretty challenging and shifty conditions." "It was an up-and-down week, but hopefully we learned a lot. We expect similar conditions during the Sailing Grand Slam in Kiel."
Dutch pair Robbert Huisman and Jorn Swart rounded out the podium in third. They won the first medal race convincingly, only to be pushed back by a jury-imposed penalty turn in the second. Despite settling for bronze, they were measured about the quality of opposition. "These were very challenging sailing conditions that really train your sharpness. The guys we raced against recently finished second at the World Championships, so it was fantastic to measure ourselves against them."
In the ILCA 7, Willem Wiersema arrived at the final day with a nine-point buffer over Swiss rival Gautier. "Yesterday, I managed to build on my lead over Gautier, giving me a maximum advantage of nine points going into today. That meant I only needed to finish ahead of him once today to secure the win," Wiersema explained. "In the first race, I tried to do that with a bit of match racing during the first upwind leg, but by the gate, we were already back with the rest of the fleet."
Gautier pushed hard, attempting to luff Wiersema at the start and lodging a protest, but the jury ruled green and no penalty was given. Massive wind shifts made his comeback difficult, and Wiersema held on for the overall win.
Dutchman Lars Jansen posted two strong second-place finishes to claim third on the ILCA 7 podium. "We learned a lot, especially from the situations where all the boats were packed very close together," Jansen said.
The IJmeer delivered a wide range of conditions across the week, from 20 to 25 knots in the shadow of fort island Pampus to lighter, tactical breezes of around 10 knots along the Almere and Amsterdam skylines. Onshore, clinics at Sail-Today, Optimist on Tour, and the WingXperience drew enthusiastic crowds, and over 300 kilograms of litter were removed from Almere waters during three Clean Up on Tour sessions.
Organisers were candid about the challenge of building the event into a genuine fixture on the international calendar. A congested May schedule, filled with overlapping World and European Championships, left the fleet thinly attended this year. The next Dutch Water Week is scheduled for 29 May to 6 June 2027, with the focus on attracting a full field of international elite sailors to match the infrastructure already in place.
