Warnemuender Woche - All heated up in the end

by Warnemuender Woche on 13 Jul 2010 Warnemuender Woche 2010.

This year’s 73rd Warnemuender Woche ended on the 11th of July with up to 40 degrees on Sunday. Over 700 000 spectators came to experience sailing, culture and summer festival for ten days. 'This has been the best possible advertisement for our region. The whole of Warnemuende had been one peaceful and friendly fan mile. The Hanseatic City of Rostock continues to support this event in the future due to its importance!', Karina Jens, President of the citizen ship of the Hanseatic City of Rostock, confirmed during the Price giving ceremonies. The Warnemuender Woche ended in Caribbean atmosphere with the departure of four cruise liners, aerial fireworks and roughly 1600 active participants in the dragon boat race. In total, 3000 athletes, including 1850 sailors from 26 nations, started. On the last weekend the sailors had to give into the heat and the calm. No races could be sailed.

Enormous heat and no wind! That is the recapitulation of the last Warnemuender Woche days. They were awaiting some wind unsuccessfully already on Saturday. „In total we had to face three very calm days, that doesn’t confuse us. We still managed to complete the Championships successfully', Principal Race Officer Uli Finckh, who awarded three German Champions on Sunday, says. „When we were allowed to sail, we had the best conditions – wind around three Beaufort: that’s our thing', Dirk Bogumil, winner of the German Championship of the Flying Dutchman, summed up. With the help of his bowman Falko Bier and three first places in the last races, he was able to fulfil his favourite role and secured his gold medal. The up-and-coming Bavarian Justus Schmidt/Max Boehme did not let anyone take the victory in the youth boat class 29er away from him: In nine races he made a series of 2,5,(37),1,1,1,1,2,1 and confidently won in front of his runner-up Philipp Mueller/Janich Moritz of Woerthsee with an advantage of 39 points. Meike Schomaeker/Holger Jess, who are excellent light wind experts, could take the lead in the 505er field right from the start. Until the end they continued being the best and finally won after seven races in front of Lutz Stengel/Frank Feller from Rostock the IDM of the505ers.

'The national classes are always coming back to us with pleasure and are glad to carry out their Championships during the Warnemuender Woche. We had four International German Championships this year, that has been unique', Uli Finckh, who’s very happy about the increase of registrations in the national classes, says. „There are two reasons why Warnemuende is this attractive to regatta sailors: first of all the wind and short access routes. They are making this area clearly to the best in Germany. And secondly, it’s the incomparable flair at the Alter Strom and the heartly and familiar atmosphere of the event', Germany’s most famous Principal Race Officer in sailing, is certain about.

Jan Kurfeld could demonstrate his skills in three races of the Olympic boat class Finn Dinghy. With a series of 1, 4, 1, he is on first place in front of his strongest competitor in the field of 49 participants, Bjoern Allansson from Sweden. 'It is extremely hard to keep the lead under light wind conditions – we’re very happy with the results' his trainer Roberto Gueldenpenning says.

Likewise the Heads of the racing committees of the international boat classes Pirat, OK-Dinghy, Korsar and J24 could only carry out three to four races. 'We just had some bad luck – the sun seemed to be fond of us, but unfortunately no thermal could emerge', Jens Merda, Head of the racing committee of the Bravo track, summed up the weekend. King of the Pirates is Bernd Hoeft/Burkhard Rieck from Rostock ahead of Marko/Thomas Anderssohn from Cottbus. In addition to the Olympic single-handed dinghy Finn the single sailors of the OK-Dinghys also started. Oliver Gronholz from Bad Segeberg won in front of Jorgen Svendson from Denmark. With a series of 1,1,2,2, the Berliners Uti/Frank Thieme came in first with 14 points ahead of Ralf Blum/Silke Kornweibel from Bruehl in the Korsar boat class. The GER 4230 with helmsman Peer Kock from Hamburg and his crew Marc-Daniel Maehlmann, Ole Hilcken. Markus Kleineedam and Greg Wilkox were able to keep their lead with Rasmus‘ help.

The big boats alone were able to compete against each other in the 'Mecklenburgische Bäderregatta'. After the 'Scho-ka-kola’' had been the fastest yacht on the 25 sea miles long course from Warnemuende over Heiligendamm and back, the 'Nordsturm' of Rainer Lessing won after five hours and one minute by calculated time in the ORC I and II rating

The 15th dragon boat festival initiated the final programme ashore on the last weekend of the WARNEMUENDER WOCHE yesterday evening. 84 teams with 1680 active paddlers, drummers and helmsmen fought for the very desired trophies of the 'LT-Cup'. The crew 'HANLO – LoveBoat' showed a very strong will to win. Even with a broken paddle in one of the preliminary races, they finished the crossing line that fast, that in the end they did get first place. Second was the 'Team Neuruppin' ahead of the 'HAVANA BOYS'. The dragon boat teams continued relentlessly and started on Sunday to the 100 metre sprint track. The shanty choir, the 10th Traditional Parade and the final concert of the state police choir finished the WARNEMUENDER WOCHE.

The heat also paralyzed the organizers ashore: 'The weather is harmful to us. Due to the heat there had been less spectators on the promenade, for example we had to shorten the entertainment programme at the stage next to the lighthouse. This has never happened before in the last 20 years', Joerg Bludau of the KVS, an event agency, explained.

Warnemuende presented itself as a large fan mile already at the start of the Warnemuender Woche: 200 000 spectators came to celebrate World Cup goals, Beachhandballers and first sailing champions. After a hot and cheery start on Saturday (3rd of July) with a street parade, and the bath tubes race „Waschzuberrennen', a constant south wind pleased the 1000 sailors from 21 nations on Sunday. 'The weather and the World Cup were excellent for Warnemuende this weekend. The atmosphere was great and above all peaceful and very joyous', Matthias Fromm, the provisional tourism manager of the Hanseatic City of Rostock and Warnemuende, said utterly pleased.

All final sailing results in a nutshell:
29er IDM after nine races: 1. Justus Schmidt/Max Boehme (Schoenwalde am Bungsberg) 14 points; 2. Philipp Mueller/Moritz Janich (Woerthsee) 53; 3. Kim Niclas Holste/Yannik Holste(Wunstorf) 54; 4. Vera Maag/Baerbel Maag (Albstadt) 61; 5. Kristin Geisler/Andrea Fuchs (Munich) 65.

505er IDM after seven races: 1. Schomaeker, Meike/Jess, Holger (Kiel) 15 points; 2. Stengel, Lutz/Feller, Frank (Rostock) 18 points; 3. Heyer, Sophie/Salein, Sebastian (Berlin) 24 points; 4.Hunger, Wolfgang/Kleiner, Julien (Strande) 29 points; Kemper, Florian/Krause, Michael (Hamburg) 42 points.

FD IDM after six races: 1. Bogumil, Dirk/Bier, Falko 8 points; 2. Luedtke, Kay-Uwe/Schaefers, Kai 11 points; 3 Bahr, Peggy/Bahr, Torsten 15 points; 4. Schwarz, Hans-Peter/Kirst, Roland (Luins) 16 points; 5. Koenig, Kilian/Brack, Johannes (Waldeck-Scheid) 33 points.

Finn after three races: 1. Jan Kurfeld (Warnemuende) 6 points; 2. Bjoern Allansson (Sweden) 7; 3. Artur Ponieczynski (Poland) 13; 4. André Budzien (Schwerin) 13; 5. Tomas Vika (Czech Republic) 22 points.
J 24 after four races: 1. Peer Kock (Hamburg) 9 points; 2. Matthias Garzmann (Hannover) 16 points; 3. Jan Hoessermann (Hamburg) 16 points; 4. Stefan Karsunke (Hamburg) 18 points; 5. Kai Mares (Daenischenhagen) 20 points.

Pirat after three races: 1.Hoeft, Bernd/Rieck, Burkhard (Rostock) 3 points; 2. Anderssohn, Marko/Anderssohn, Thomas (Cottbus) 10 points; 3. Anders, Peter/Bark, Peter (Guestrow) 10 points; 4. Anderssohn, Jan/Jendrzejewski, Sarah (Berlin) 13 points; Heldt, Thomas/Pingel, Ines (Teterow) 14 points.

OK-Dinghy after three races: 1. Oliver Gronholz (Bad Segeberg) 10 points; 2. Jørgen Svendsen (Denmark) 11; 3. Jörgen Lindhardtsen (Denmark) 16; 4. Rene Johannsen (Sweden) 20; 5. Erik Bork (Berlin) 21.

Korsar after four races: 1. Thieme, Uti/Thieme, Frank 6 points; 2. Blum, Ralf/Kornweibel, Silke 20 points; 3. Schmitt, Ingo/Van Holt Johanna (Neukirchen-Vluyn) 22 points; 4. Duncker, Klaus/Fischbach, Carsten (Halle) 22 points; Daniel/Christian Winkel (Mandelbachtal) 28 points.

The best sailing pictures of the day can be found at www.warnemuender-woche.com