William Berntsen

William Berntsen
Nationality:	Denmark
Birthday:	March 25, 1912
Place of birth:	Jersie
Date of death:	September 14, 1994
Place of death:	Frederikssund
Size:	170 cm
Weight:	70 kg
Society:	Hellerup Sejlklub , Frederikssund Sejlklub
Boat classes:	Kite , 5.5 m class
Medal table
Olympic games 0 × 1 × 1 × World championships 0 × 1 × 0 ×
Olympic games bronze London 1948 Dragons silver Rome 1960 5.5 m class  Sailing world championships silver Helsinki 1961 5.5 m class

William Eldred Berntsen (born March 25, 1912 in Jersie , † September 14, 1994 in Frederikssund ) was a Danish sailor .

successes

William Berntsen, who sailed for the Hellerup Sejlklub and the Frederikssund Sejlklub , took part in the Olympic Games five times . At his Olympic debut in 1948 in London he was in the boat class Dragons skipper of the Danish boat Snap whose crew from his brother Ole Berntsen and Klaus Baess existed. In a total of seven races, the Snap always placed among the best five boats and finished the regatta taking place in Torquay in third place with 4223 total points, giving the Berntsen brothers and Baess the bronze medal behind the Pan by Thor Thorvaldsen from Norway and the Slaghoken received from Folke Bohlin from Sweden. Four years later , Ole Berntsen was the skipper, while William Berntsen and Aage Birch completed the crew. With the yacht Snude they only finished fifth in the kite class, despite winning the third race. During his third Olympic participation in Rome in 1960 , Berntsen again acted as skipper, this time in the 5.5 m class . Together with his crew Søren Hancke and Steen Christensen , he won two of the seven races with the Web II . They finished the regatta taking place in Naples with 5678 points in second place behind the American boat Minotaur led by George O'Day and in front of Ballerina IV from Switzerland with skipper Henri Copponex and thus won the silver medal. At the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo , he did not get past twelfth place with the Web III in the 5.5-meter class. In 1968 he was only able to leave one boat behind in Mexico City in the same class and finished the regatta in 13th place.

In 1961 William Berntsen was runner-up in the 5.5-meter class in Helsinki . His second brother Carl Berntsen sailed in the 1936 Olympic Games.

Web links

• William Berntsen in the database of World Sailing (English)
• William Berntsen in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )