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The top group of the Hanseatic Lloyd Dragon worlds saw a mixture of success and mishaps. Vincent HOESCH from (GER), current world champion of 2003 that time with compatriot Dieter SCHÖN, achieved his first win. But with a score of 35, he has no chance to defend his title anymore. 'Too late for the heroes,' was his brief comment after a race that had finally been to his liking. HOESCH and his crew Harro KNIFFKA and Max SCHEIBMAIER had been chasing the fleet and pushed ahead from the fifth rank at the first mark to second and on into the lead.

He even passed this year's Gold Cup winners, Jorgen SCHÖNHERR and his crew Anders KAEMPE and Anders WALDERDORPH. Rank two made the Danish triumvirate the top favourites of winning the coveted double of Gold Cup and world championship. Particularly so as MÜLLER-SPREER with Markus WIESER and Thomas AURACHER toppled and came only 19th. The Germans discarded this as their worst race, so they will enter the final race on Sunday (28. August) 'only' eleven points behind SCHÖNHERR. 'From the very beginning, we had seen him to be our fiercest competitor,' said WIESER, 'now it looks like we have to wait for him to trip to have a chance of winning.'

Despite a disastrous race that landed him on rank 59 Lars HENDRIKSEN from Denmark still hopes to get a podium finish. This is now beyond reach for Germans Thomas MÜLLER with Marc PICKEL and Ingo BORKOWSKI. 'A beautiful race day with sunshine and wind, one of the best we had this year,' said BORKOWSKI sarcastically. Also title holder Dieter SCHÖN (AUT) has no more chance to be among the top three.

Despite two minor slips with two fourth ranks, Bernd ZEIGER'S crew on board the Sextanten made clear that they are set to win the X-79 German Open. Two wins let her surpass Morten REINHOLD, Denmark again, whose Cirkeline had meanwhile taken over the lead. 'In the first half of the day, nothing went as planned,' reported ZEIGER'S crew member Felix WEIDLING (GER), 'in race five, we even thought we had started prematurely, but luckily, that turned out to be not the case. At some stage, we were only 15th.'

But ZEIGER never let go and he firmly steered his boat ahead to success. 'Race three today was a pure win from start to finish,' said the owner, 'you had to go right in any case and so we did straight away.' The fourth and final race on Saturday were much more tricky - but all's well that ends well. Another two races are scheduled for Sunday. ZEIGER: 'We must be sharp, nothing is decided yet.'