Women Sailors

Swedes take unexpected flight to top of 49erFXs

August 16, 2023August 17, 2023

By David Pendered

Aug. 16 — Two women who were ranked “best of the rest” have soared to the top of the class in the double-handed skiff, the high-performance 49erFX.

Sweden’s Vilma Bobeck and Rebecca Netzler are beating the odds by dominating the women’s skiff, the 49erFX. (Credit: Sailing Energy / World Sailing. 16 August 2023)

Sailing for Sweden, Vilma Bobeck and Rebecca Netzler have a lead that is virtually insurmountable. They hold a 36-point net lead over the Brazilian team that were favored to win the 2023 Allianz Sailing World Championships, Odile Van Aanholt and Annette Duetz.

In sailing the low score wins. The Swedes have 48 net points and the Brazilians have 84. To put the size of Sweden’s lead in perspective, the No. 10-ranked boat on Wednesday has a net score of 125, posted by the sisters Johanne Schmidt and Andrea Schmidt, sailing for Denmark.

Not to shift away from the Swedish team, but the two sisters have their own back story. They’re studying engineering in college, Johanne in chemical and Andrea in mechanical engineers. They and say in a video posted on the page of a sponsor, COWI, a civil engineering firm, “our dream is to win a medal at the Olympics in 2024.” They were not on the list of “Ones to Watch.”

Bobeck and Netzler have been sailing fast, but hadn’t cracked the inner circle of “Ones to Watch” as designated by the 2023 Allianz Sailing World Championships.

Here’s the full version of the write-up of Bobeck and Netzler in “Ones to Watch:”

“There are a number of contenders for the best of the rest. Vilma Bobeck and Rebecca Netzler (SWE) are tall and fast in the breeze and gave their Dutch training partners a good battle for the world title in Canada last year before settling for silver.”

The Schmidt sisters hope to race in the 2024 Paris Olympics and then finish their college degrees in engineering. (Credit: linkedin.com)

These women have fulfilled that expectation. Their best races have been in winds of 13 to 14 knots, the conditions that were common earlier in the week. As winds abated to 10 knots, they finished 19th in the fleet of 58 boats.

That sluggish sail was immediately followed by a mash-up in which eight boats were disqualified for crossing the line early under a black flag.

The duo instantly rebounded and took first in the next race. They crossed the finish line 37 seconds ahead of the No. 2 finisher in that race, Odile Van Aanholt and Annette Duetz. This team sailing for Brazil had been proclaimed the one to beat by the “Ones to Watch.” Here’s the full version of their write-up:

“Odile van Aanholt and Annette Duetz (NED) have proved every bit as dominant in the 49erFX as their 49er teammates in the men’s skiff.
“Winners of the past two World Championships, they won the Paris 2024 Test Event by a clear 30 points from their rivals, the double Olympic champions from Brazil.”