Sad news

July 3, 2017

During our Round the Island Race last weekend, we must have been between the Needles and Point St Catherine’s, boat CAPELLA lost her keel when racing close to Ostend. She capsized immediately. Only six hours later the turned over hull (giving hardly any visibility to other boats) of the boat was spotted by a dredger. Frans Maas and Freddy Franssens had at that moment lost their lives already. Hannes Goegebeur is still missing.

Freddy Franssens was the initiator of our aluminium Proctor mast (1999) and of our new Hall Spars carbon fibre mast (2017) and Frans Maas did the weighing and measuring of WINSOME for IRC. We knew both of them quite well from their crewing with Piet Vroon in Cowes Week and in Fastnet Races. We will remember them as very experienced, important people for the racing industry and for off shore racing.

Our thoughts are with Ina Franssens, Francine Maas and their families.