Reigning champions start defending their titles at 470 Junior Worlds

by segler-zeitung.de on 22 Jun 2016 Both of the reigning champion duos who started the defence of their respective titles when the 470 Junior World Championships started today at Kieler Woche found the shifty, streaky breezes difficult to read and could make only relatively modest openings.

The Junior World Championship have drawn 32 female and 54 male duos to Kieler Woche France’s Guillaume Pirouelle and Valentin Sapin struggled in the first race of the series, finding themselves on the wrong side of the first windshift and although they fought back to third at the first leeward turn were down to 18th place by the finish while Italy’s Benedetta di Salla and Alessandra Dubbini, Junior World title winners in Thessalonika, Greece last year, started their regatta with a 24th, a reflection of just how hard the changeable winds were to get right.

“It was very difficult with the wind blowing off the shore, very difficult. The first race we were just not in the right place on the course. We had a bad first upwind, but came back to third on the downwind and then had another bad upwind. It was just difficult,” Pirouelle grimaced.

Germany’s Matti Cipra and Malte Winkel from Schwerin, two hours southeast of Kiel, underlined the benefit of their weeks of training on these waters when they sailed to a pair of confident wins to lead the class by one point ahead of the Japanese duo Keiju Okada and Naoya Kimura who scored a 2,1,2

“We were lucky today,” smiled Okada. “We picked the side where the wind was each time and sailed fast.”

The clouds overhead were pulling the offshore breeze around creating big shifts and changes in wind pressure. With 6-8kts on the start line for the Junior World Championships’ first race, the breeze built slightly but the third race was the most random with the changes coming quickly.

“The key thing today was responding quickly to the changes, good trimming for the wind pressure and quick, smooth tacks,” Anna Markfort, Germany’s fourth placed, crew recalled. Ironically the Greek pair Maria Bozi and Rafalina Klonaridou who top the Women’s standings are from Thessaloniki, the venue for last year’s 470 Junior World Championships where they finished runners up to the Italian girls. The Greek duo may have found it cooler today than their home waters – where it was 33 deg C today – but they were the standout team in the Women’s regatta posting a 2,3,4.

“It was a very tough start to the regatta, very difficult. We were a little bit lucky but we did well following the gusts and staying in the wind pressure.” Commented helm Bozi.

New Zealand’s Olympic Silver medallists and current 49er World Champions Peter Burling and Blair Tuke are racing at Kieler Woche as a final training regatta before Rio. As expected they won their first race but were among a number of teams to be disqualified for starting early in the second race, among the others DSQ’d being Ireland’s Ryan Seaton and Matt McGovern who were fourth in the first race.

“We have quite a good fleet here. We want more racing before we go to the Games and this is the last major event. There are a few good guys in the fleet and so we are looking at a good, fun week getting more time in the boat, more racing and just finalising a few things. Then we will have some time off. We have been here five or six times. It is a tiring place to be so you don’t want to spend too much time here, but it is a challenging venue the sailing is interesting with tide and a lot going on. Other guys are in Rio but we decided to do more racing in Europe.” Explained Tuke before going afloat.

Italian teams rank as favourites in the J/70 European championships which start Thursday at Kieler Woche with a huge fleet of 95 boats from 15 different nations. The huge success of Germany’s Sailing Bundesliga club league championship has been the catalyst for big growth in the J/70 class all over Germany. Carlo Alberini’s Calvi Network was second at last year’s world championships. They have Branko Brcin of Slovenia as tactician and two times Olympian Karlo Hmeljak on mainsail trim. Eduardo Lupi’s Torpyone has Italy’s three times Melges 24 world champion tactician Lorenzo Bressani calling tactics, while Claudia Rossi – daughter of Farr 40 Enfant Terrible campaigner Alberto Rossi – steers Petit Terrible.