Australia to the fore at Kiel Week

by ISAF/Di Pearson on 25 Jun 2004 It was a challenging first day on Kiel Fjord for competitors at the ISAF Grade 1 Kieler Woche for Olympic classes. Competitors from over 35 nations have gathered and were treated to gusty SW winds over 25 knots, rain and thunderstorms.

These conditions did not deter our robust Aussie 470 sailors, however, with Jenny Armstrong/Belinda Stowell and Nathan Wilmot/Malcolm Page winning their respective races. Loving the big winds, Allison Shreeve, too, won all three of her races in the Mistral Womens, to lead the series – a fantastic result.

Along with a number of our Olympic team, Jessica Crisp, who will represent Australia in Athens, is not competing at this event. Others missing in action are Lars Kleppich in the Mistral Mens, Darren Bundock and John Forbes in the Tornado, Nicky Bethwaite and crew in the Yngling, Michael Blackburn in the Laser and Anthony Nossiter in the Finn.

Other Australian results have Chris Nicholson/Gary Boyd (49er) currently in 13th place after two races with a 9th and 4th, Sarah Blanck is tenth in the Europe class after one race, Colin Beashel/David Giles are eighth in the Star after one race, Tom Slingsby is having another fantastic regatta in the Laser with a 9-3-5 result for 11th overall, Corey Plant is also having a good regatta with a 24th place in the Mens Mistral whilst newcomer to the Finn, but certainly not to elite sailing, James Mayjor, is 37th after one race.

Race Management succeeded in starting one race on each course. Only on course B the Tornados were sent back home, because of the wind speed reaching over 30 knots at times.

The women’s keelboat fleet, sailing the Yngling unfortunately has only three entries and they decided not to risk their gear and will start their first race tomorrow. The class lacks participation due to a clash with a Greek regatta which was originally scheduled for this week and postponed at last minute, - to protect the Grade 1 ISAF status of Kiel Week. However, the postponement was too late for most of the Yngling competitors to ship their gear from Athens back to Kiel.

43 competitors started in the Finn class, and Rafael TRUJILLO (ESP) won the first race, followed by Gasper VINCEC (SLO) in second and Michael MAIER (CZE) in third. The German Finn sailor Michael FELLMANN, who will be representing Germany in Athens 2004, finished in 15 place.

A very competitive women’s Europe fleet of over 90 boats sailed a tough race against strong winds and waves, and Canadian Jennifer SPALDING was first crossing the finishing line in Group One. In Group Two Carolijn BROUWER (NED) lead the fleet, and in Group Three the German Wiebke SCHROEDER was first at the finish. Second place in each group went to Tatiana DROZDOVSKAYA (BLR), Rie CHRISTIANSEN (DEN) and Signe LIVBJERG, also from Denmark. Petra NIEMANN, who won the Olympic qualification slot for Germany, sailed to fifth place in the Group One.

A spectacular sight offered the ‘flying’ 49er fleets, mist and rain together with gusty breeze made them visible and vanishing like in a fairy tale! Two races were completed for both fleets.

In race one Pietro and Gianfranco SIBELLO (ITA) won the gold fleet followed by Chris DRAPER and Simon HISCOCKS (GBR) and André FONSECA and Rodrigo DUARTE (BRA) in third. Draper and Hiscocks then took first in the second race with Allan NORREGAARD and Klaus NAUR finishing third and Fonseca and Duarte taking third again.

In the silver group Stevie MORRISON and Ben RHODES (GBR) got off to a good start taking first, they were followed by Peter and Sören HANSEN (DEN) second, and Rodion LUKA and Georgiy LEONCHUK (UKR) in third. Luka and Leonchuk then went on to win the second race to place them in second overall behind Draper and Hiscocks.

The ‘Shooting stars’ in the Star class were 2004 World Champions Fredrik LÖÖF and Anders EKSTROM, who placed first in the only race sailed. The Bermudian team Peter BROMBY and Lee WHITE followed in second position, and Mark NEELEMAN and Peter Van NIEKERK (NED) who will represent their country in Athens third.

The Australian Olympic Gold-team in 2000 Jenny ARMSTRONG and Belinda STOWELL won the first and only race in the Women’s 470 class. In second place were the French team of Ingrid PETITJEAN and Nadege DOUROUX and in third was the US team of Katie MCDOWELL and Isabelle KINSOLVING.

Belinda Stowell reported overnight, ‘Kiel Week started two days ago – and we have only sailed one race - but a good race!! We won by at least two minutes and were well on our way into the Harbour before the last boats had finished.

This was the trickiest position though, as we were sent in due to a huge storm brewing which caught us half way home. It was so fierce the sky was almost brown and so we dropped our main sail in anticipation of bad weather. It was pretty smart as I was almost full trapezing off the jib alone!

The sail to our course is about one hour and 20 minutes, depending on the wind direction of course, so it was a day where the travel time was longer than the actual racing time.

Today, with forecasts of 40 knots and lots of talk about a vortex over middle Europe causing very strong winds, racing was called off for us.

We are the only class at Kiel big and fast enough to cross the channel, so it was too risky to send us all out. They raced some of the other classes on an inner course which they may well do for us tomorrow if the huge winds persist.

We are happy to have started this regatta well, which is something we have not done in recent regattas. We are looking forward to some more racing though.’

The 72 boat Men’s 470 fleet sails in two groups and both completed one race. The gold group race was won by 2003 World Champions Gabrio ZANDONA and Andrea TRANI (ITA) with Ireland’s Gerald OWENS and Ross KILLIAN second and Javier CONTE and Juan de la FUERTE (ARG) in third.

Victory in the silver group went to 2004 World Champions Nathan WILMOT and Malcolm PAGE. In second place was Gideon KLIGER and Ehud GAL (ISR) and Vincent GAROS and Pierrre LEBOUCHER, FRA in third.

More than 160 Lasers, divided into three groups, started for their first race on course Charlie. Taking first place in their groups were Allen JULIE (SEY), Paul GOODISON (GBR) and Roope SOUMALAINEN (FIN).

The 78 boards in the men’s Mistral fleet also started in two groups and many competitors opted not to sail. First place finishers were Alexander BARONJAN (GER) and Gusti Made Oka SULAKSANA (INA) with second place going to Ivor Pastor LAFUENTE (ESP) and Richard Stauffacher (SUI). The women’s Mistral fleet is rather smaller with 27 entries. Allison SHREEVE (AUS) won the first race followed by Wai Kei CHAN (HKG) in second and Olga MASLIVETS (UKR) in third.

In the Paralympic single-person keelboat class using the 2.4mR, Paralympic gold medallist Heiko KRÖGER from Germany finished first. Kroger was followed by Thierry SCHMITTER (NED) in second and Damien SEGUIN (FRA) in third.

Full results from all classes are available on the event website via the link below.

Event Website: www.kieler-woche.de