ORCi Worlds - Beluga Sailing Team and Patent 3 win

by ORCi Worlds on 12 Sep 2010 ORCi Worlds - On this final day of two inshore races left to complete the nine-race series, two new offshore champions are crowned: Christian Plump’s Rodman 42 Beluga Sailing Team (GER) and Jurgen Klinghardt’s X-332 Sport patent 3 (GER) have won the Alpha Division and Beta Division, respectively, in the 2010 ORCi World Championship.

Patent 3 has also won the Corinthian Trophy for their division, while the Stichting Havoc Sailing Team sailing their Ker 11.3 Daikin Airco (NED) have won this trophy in the Alpha Division. The 6-day event was organized and hosted by the Flensburger Segel-Club (FSC).

Racing today was on the Flensburger Foerde once again, and in perfect 9-14 knot conditions with enough shifts, puffs and ulls to make for very interesting tactical sailing. With 19 and 30 boats on the starting lines of the Alpha and Beta
Divisions, respectively, and short 5.9-mile courses, once again the race tracks were crowded and those that had good
starts, astute tactics, and flawless crew work were rewarded.

Even the smallest mistakes were punished brutally by the tight fleets bunched up closely on these short courses.
Richard Vojta’s GS42R Bohemian Express (CZE) tactician Christian Binder gloomily predicted yesterday that they
had no chance to defeat Christian Plump’s Rodman 42 Beluga Sailing Team (GER), believing their teamwork was not
up to the task.

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But proving its never over until its over, the team went out and did what Binder thought was impossible: they won both races while the German team fell into the pack, vaulting them ahead into what they thought was the winner’s circle and their first World Championship crown.

But in an impressive act of sportsmanship in response to an earlier protest involving a controversial grounding incident that occurred on Thursday’s long offshore race, Bohemia Express elected to retire from that race.

Since offshore races cannot be discarded under ORC rules, the resulting increase in points moved them off the podium and into fourth place and elevated Beluga into the lead, with Veolia (GER), a local-based IMX 40 owned by Sven Christensen and T. Bastiansen, finishing with silver medals, and the Doctrina team’s Salona 42R All 4 One (CRO) earning bronze medals.

In contrast, the patent 3’s win in Division Beta was decidedly less controversial, with the team leading from start to finish and winning outright all but one of the six inshore races, allowing them to finish with last than half the points of her Division Beta runner-up, local-based Johann Friedrichsen’s near-sistership X-332 Chinook (GER), while AD Boats’
Salona 37 Salona (NED) took the bronze medals.

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'Our teamwork was our particular strength,' said Klinghardt, 'since we’re capable of being able to do anything the
tactician wants. For this regatta we had a very good Platu one-design sailor, Andreas Hengstmann, who has sailed a lot here in Flensburg, and this was a big help this week. We also have a very well optimized boat, as I wanted to make sure we would have no excuses with the boat, the sails, or the rating.'

So two more offshore World Championship crowns go to German teams, since Team Germany won the ISAF Offshore
Team Championship in Sardinia earlier this summer.

'This was a fantastic World Championship,' said Dr Wolfgang Schaefer, Vice-President of the Offshore Racing
Congress (ORC). 'There was a tremendous international level of competition, all wind conditions from light to heavy air, and excellent race management.

And the rating rule is working very well: we had many races where the top eight boats were within less than 1 minute in corrected time. We congratulate all the winners, organizers, and sponsors for a highly successful event!'

The Flensburger Segel-Club thanks its sponsors Pantaenius Yacht Insurance, Maschinenfabrik Anthon and Dehler,
who have helped make the ORCi Worlds 2010 possible.

http://www.fsc.de/regatten/orci-worlds-2010

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