Kiel Week: Endurance test for people and materials

While the men’s 49er were no longer able to compete around midday due to the increasing breeze, the iQFOiLers were truly in their element during their matches on the eastern shore of Stein. The spray flew over the Outer Fjord, and Tomasz Romanowski of Poland continued to lead the way, although he was tied on points with Korean Gunhak Choi. Fabian Wolf of Kiel admitted he “did a lot of things right, but had just as much bad luck with the seaweed,” which unintentionally slowed him down. He remains just four points behind.

Young talent Sophia Meyer had a brilliant day. The 20-year-old broke through the ranks of the top four French women in four races and is only four points behind leader Marion Couturier. “I’m surprised myself at how well it went, even though the conditions were a ‘fight for survival’ for us,” the Kiel native said, summing up a strenuous day of racing, after which she’s on course for her own goal. Meyer: “I definitely want to make it onto the podium at Kiel Week – ideally at the very top, of course.”

The ILCA-7 competition remained firmly in Italian hands. Lorenzo Brando Chiavarini leads ahead of Dimitri Peroni. Former world champion Philipp Buhl climbed onto the podium with two seventh-place finishes. The man of the day, however, was Justin Barth from Berlin, who followed up a stage win with a fourth-place finish and is now sixth. “Everything came together with successful starts, a good overview of the wind shifts under the clouds, but also fortunate timing,” said the 23-year-old, who is looking forward to the media session and the live broadcast on KielerWoche.TV on Tuesday.

Three strong-wind races repeatedly shook up the ILCA 6 standings. Despite a discard at the start of the day, Elyse Ainsworth of Australia took the yellow bib just ahead of Anna Munch (Denmark) and Hungarian Mari Erdi. The other finishers are also close, so the qualifying for the medal races of the top ten (Wednesday) seems highly likely under similar conditions.

With two flawless stage victories in the blue qualifying group, Italian Alessandro Cirinei took over the yellow jersey of the overall leader at the ILCA-6 World Championship. “It was really tough, but I handled it perfectly,” said the new leader, who pushed Ukrainian Semen Khashchyna from first to third. Benedek Héder of Hungary remained second overall with fifth and second places. The lead from the podium over the pursuers from Canada, Italy, and Denmark is already 13 and 15 points, respectively. As the best German, Levian Büscher just made it into the top ten.

The previously dominant Norwegians Nicklas Holt and Philip Forslund suffered a setback in the strong winds at the 29er Eurocup, but defended their overall lead ahead of the advancing Poles Szymon Kolka and Bartosz Zmudzinski. Their closest rivals come from New Zealand: The day’s best, Nelsen Meacham/Joe Leith (1st/3rd), are ahead of William Leech and William Mason. The interim results promise an exciting final day for the podium places.

The inshore portion of the International German Offshore Sailing Championship also concludes on Tuesday. Danish professional helmsman Jesper Radich, aboard the XR-41 “Formula X,” is making his way through the ORC A/B classification group largely unchallenged. Jens Kuphal from Berlin, aboard the “Exciter,” claimed second place overall in the day’s only race, but will have to fend off the ambitions of the similarly constructed “WB IX” from Italy and the “DIXI V” (also from Denmark) on the final day. “The battles for position on the course are extremely exciting among the four of us,” said Radich, who lost at least once to the Italians the day before. In the ORC C/D, the Swede Patrik Forsgren, aboard the “Garmin Team Pro4u,” used a daily victory to push Torsten Bastiansen and his Flensburg “Sydbank” crew out of the lead, tied on points.

Text and images courtesy of Kieler Woche. Read more on the Kiel Week website.