Kieler Woche - X99 Gold Cup, Farr 30 Europeans and 505s

by Kieler Woche on 25 Jun 2011 Kieler Woche delivered lots of action today as the wind picked up to 25 knots. This resulted in a mega crash on the championship course of the X99 Gold Cup and the Farr 30 Europeans.

Swedish Farr 30 skipper Patrick Lindblom and his crew collided with a X99 in the second race of the day. He saw the approaching X99 on starboard tack very late and tried to avoid the collision by bearing away in the last moment. But the X 99 helmsman had the same idea and they crashed. 'It was our fault', said Lindblom. This resulted in serious damage and unfortunately the Swede cannot carry on with racing in Kiel. Just seven yachts are still in the game.

The multiple X99 champion and strong favorite Christian Soyka captured the lead in his class after five races. He took line honours with 'ImmacX' in two races and finished 19th in the third race of the day after a strong windshift.

'We did not got anything right in this race', said Soyka. 'We got hurt pretty much by an extreme shift after the start which resulted even in a jibe to reach the windward mark. Afterwards there was a man over board issue and for that reason the 19 points are almost okay. Fortunately we can discard this result.'

Martin Christiansen (Strande) seems to be focused on second places. He already got four and sits just one point behind Soyka. The scene is set for this German battle. The third ranked Dane Kim Rasmussen already got eleven more points on his score card.

The Farr 30 class sailed one more race. Martin Strandberg from Sweden took two bullets but the German local Harald Brüning is not too far away. 'After one race win and two seconds we are not very happy about the third place in the last race. It was not possible for us to point enough in this kind of heavy weather. We have to check our trim and start attacking tomorrow.'

In the 505 class the world champions Wolfgang Hunger and Julien Kleiner took the lead from Meike Schomäker and Holger Jess as expected in the strong stuff. With two race wins and a second Hunger is approaching his 18th Kieler Woche win. He sits on eight points and seems to be unbeatable in this conditions.

But Meike Schomäker said: 'Today we were quite confident to keep his speed although our crew weight is 25 kilo less. Especially on the run we were quite fast. But we had some handling issues in this strong gusts and the chaotic waves.'

The danish ex World Champion Jan Saugmann is snipping hard on her heels with a strong 2/3/1 score.

Results at Kieler Woche website