Kieler Woche 2026 - Day 7: Sailing like in the Caribbean
by Kieler Woche 26 Jun 19:15 BST
20-28 June 2026
In yellow jerseys and in first place heading into the Gold Fleet: Blanka Sójkowska and Julia Nagórska from Poland are having a brilliant Kieler Woche in the 29er Eurocup © Christian Beeck / Kieler Woche
Temperatures of 28 degrees Celsius above the water and a moderate Easterly breeze created ideal, Caribbean-like sailing conditions on Friday (June 26) at Kieler Woche.
In all nine international classes, nearly the full race program - comprising 48 races - was completed on seven racecourses. At the Flying Dutchman (FD) World Championship, Szabolcs Majthenyi and András Domokos from Hungary took the lead ahead of Kay-Uwe Lüdtke and Kai Schäfers (Germany). Blanka Sójkowska and Julia Nagórska from Poland remained the 29er leaders in the Eurocup, narrowly ahead of Australians Mia Austin and Zara Marks. Kieler Woche continues through Sunday.
So far, the world's best 29er crews come from three continents. In this dress rehearsal for the World Championship, Poland sits ahead of Australia and Argentina on the provisional podium, before they face off against each other for the first time in the Gold Fleet starting Saturday. With two bullets in the last two of four races, Germans David Plettner and Moritz Aigner hold fourth place overall, ten points behind Maximo Baudoino and Juan Ignacio Cernadas.
Kay-Uwe Lüdtke and Kai Schäfers currently hold Germany's best chance at a third world championship title following those in 2022 and 24 in the Flying Dutchman class. The crew finished second after three races of the day. Multiple world champions Majthenyi/Domokos lead after two bullets. Nicola and Francesco Vespansiani from Italy are in third place. The brothers Jørgen and Jacob Bojsen-Møller from Denmark dropped from first to fifth place.
ILCA-6 talent Erik Scheidt aims to follow in his father's Olympic gold-medal-winning footsteps. At least the son of Brazilian ILCA legend Robert Scheidt (five Olympic medals) is taking a step in that direction at Kieler Woche. Scheidt Jr. sailed to two bullets in four races in the open ILCA 6 class on Friday with consistent performances in the heat and will start Saturday's races wearing the yellow jersey.
"The conditions out there were very good," Scheidt said. "But there's still a lot of work to do", before he could maybe match his father's great successes, the 16-year-old admitted with a smile. He'll give it a try, though. Viktorija Andrulyte (Lithuania), who also sails the ILCA 6 very successfully at the female Olympic level, and Viktor Elfving (Sweden) are lurking in second and third place. Close behind is the best German in the class so far, Luisa Helene Kloss, in fourth place.
"That was really awesome today - I had a blast," Heiko Kröger exclaimed after his OK debut. "In the third race, I was even in second place for a long time." The Paralympic gold medalist and record-holding 2.4-metre winner at Kieler Woche is aiming to make his mark in the dinghy this time around. The German is 17th out of 47. Surprisingly, Sebastian Schmidt-Klügmann (also from Germany) leads the pack ahead of the Danes Jesper Bendix and Steen Christensen. The overall lead in the Contender class was taken by Italian Marco Ferrari, ahead of Germany's Max Billerbek and Australia's Mark Bulka.
A Danish one-two dominates the J/70 class. Kim Gardø Christensen and his crew are tied for first place with Sten Mohr. Willi Sörensen knocked the previous day's leader, Kai-Uwe Hollweg (both from Germany), off the podium; Hollweg is now in fourth place. In the J/24 class, the Dutch crew led by skipper Dirk Olyslagers is in the lead.
Full results can be found here.