IMS Offshore World Championship - Day 1

by Andreas Kling on 9 Aug 2006 As the Stars were halfway through their first race today, so the larger keelboats set sail on the first race of the IMS Offshore World Championship, forming the other half of Rolex Baltic Week. Separate starts took place for the two IMS Divisions, who today race their offshore race, an overnighter of 116 miles for the 26 yachts in division one and 90 miles for the 24 in division two.

The fleets got underway on time in around 10 knots of wind under intermittent baking sunshine and cumulus cloud shadow, the course initially taking them on a short beat up to a Rolex mark off Neustadt. First to this as her rating would suggest was Bernd Kriegel's Judel-Vrolijk 49 Unique, however she was followed closely by the IMS Offshore World Championship's only Russian yacht, the Grand Soleil 42R Yugtransit steered by Sergey Shevtsov.

The owners of this potent IMS racer run a company that exports grain from across Russia. Her crew are mostly based in Taganrog, on the Sea of Azov, northeast of the Black Sea. After a season in the Mediterranean they have been competing at leading regatta around Northern Europe this season culminating in their win at Kiel Week. 'At the IMS Offshore World Championship we know many of the boats and it is a very serious competition - there are many good boats', warned helmsman Sergey Shevtsov.

Carl Edward Jansen's Botin & Carkeek designed one-off 2 Obnoxious, the second most highly rated boat in Division 1, got off to a poor start rounding the weather mark eighth. The team have been racing his boat for a couple of years and have consistently finished second behind the King of Norway's Fram in local regattas, although this year they are the present leader in the Norwegian IMS Championship.

At the scoring gate 30 miles into the course, Unique was still leading from Christian Plump's Evento 46 HLL Hanseatic Lloyd, while the Russians had dropped to third.

The boats in the IMS World Championship are expected to return to Neustadt tomorrow morning, when the Stars will be readying themselves for races four and five of their championship.