X-35 Worlds and X-41 Europeans at Kieler Woche - Day 2
by Hermann Hell 25 Jun 2009 23:06 BST
20-28 June 2009
The wind piped up big time this afternoon and it startet to rain. The X-Yachts sailing in the world and European championships finished all scheduled races in good shape. But the first casualities occurred in the dinghy fleets as several boats came in early damaged, including one dismasting. With the weather becoming bad, Kiel week lives up to its reputation to be able to dish out harsh conditions.
But according to Hilger Erdmann (64), Kiel week's on-site weather expert since 1983. It will all be over by tomorrow. Until then though Erdmann is expecting gusts with more than 30 knots and even worse rain during the night. So fastening docklines securely and lashing down dinghies will be wise.
Having established herself even more firmly at the top of the leaderboard the success comes a bit as a suprise to the crew german X-41 "König & Cie" according to co-owner Jörn Meyer from Hamburg. Though the crew had commit to sailing the full season of 2009 preperations mainly took place in domestic waters and in the shed. "We knew from regattas last year that we were ok speedwise" continues Meyer, "So we more worked on our maneuvering skills and on the yacht's maintanence. But of course we are very happy."
The way "Galatea" prepared for this event could not have been more different from „König & Cie's“ as she is based in Italy. It consisted of sailing, sailing and more sailing. For months the crew raced in the med and only shipped the yacht to Kiel for this event. Just last friday the team craned „Galatea“ into the waters of the baltic. Once this European Championship is over the yacht with the half italian crew is brought back to the mediterranian Copa del Rey being "Galatea's" next event. Owner Florian Fahr says "Surely it is a big hassle bringing the boat here. But she's it's a german-registered yacht and has to sail in home waters when there is a big event scheduled. There is no question to it."
Holding 6th place overall the men are certain that there never was a clear favourite to this event as most boats meet for the first time at this EC.
"Galateas" crew maily hail from Italy and has hardly ever been to Kiel. To boost local knowledge in the Baltic they hired German multihull specialist and olympic silver medallist, Roland Gaebler. Geabler ranks among the best known yachtsmen in Germany.
In the X-35's fleet it's Alessandro Solerio's "Lelagain" from Italy that took the top spot from Albert Kooijmans "Just4Fun" from Holland. "Lelagain" clocked up a win and a second – and discards a tenth place. After five races in the 33-boat-fleet discards now come into play.
Of course the german crew of "Celox" is quite happy clinging on to place five overall. But some of the crew seem to beeven more hungry - they want to reach a podium finish. Not so happy is "Stihl's" Crew led by skipper Sören Lange. Currently the hardly reach rankings in the first half of the fleet. But they want to improve. Even though discards are now part of the calculations only half of the event is sailed – so there is still room for improvement.
The final words concerning the weather and the event in general go to the crew of the X-35 "X.O" from Finland – skippered by Teemu Kekkonen and currently holding 6th place overall. Asked weather the event lives up to expectation they answer "absolutely" wearing huge grins on their faces.Asked weather they were irritated by the deterioriating weather – meanwhile the wind was howling through the rigs – the bold men answer with an almost viking-like laughter: "Absolutely not! It's like a typical Finnish summer holiday here."
Full results at www.kieler-woche.de