Warnemuender Woche - Dragons dash through the storm

by Warnemuender Woche amended Sail-World.com on 10 Jul 2011 Warnemuender Woche continued today with 90 teams starting the 16th Dragon Boat festival.

Only a few hours after the last guests left the reception of Rostock’s mayor Roland Methling – which was held in honour of the 85th anniversary of the Russian training sailing ship 'Kruzenshtern' left the gangway of the traditional four master, the Dragon Boat festival began and the sailors of the other ten boat classes started their final day.

It was the time for the big boats again on the final weekend: the initial signal told the 28 yachts that the 30 sea mile one-day regatta had started. Due to winds up to 14 knots from the southern region and bright sunshine, the traditional offshore-highlight of the Warnemuender Woche was a huge success. The 'First Ship Home' title this year went to the 'Exocet', helmsman Peter Hermann from Rostock.

In the Olympic, very athletic single-hand dinghy Finn, Lennart Luttkus from Toenisvort was able to extend his lead, ahead of Ulli Kurfeldt. Master’s Champion André Budzien worked himself back to position five after two races.

In the Paralympic sailing class 2.4mR Michael Kortke from Dresden was just in front of Cor de Graaff from the Netherlands, with just four points between them.

Luca Devoti, an Olympic silver medal winner of the Finnclass, and a successful America’s Cup sailor – had a vision: A single-hand dinghy, which is modern and fast and at the same time comfortable and sailable for everyone. So Devoti-One was designed, completely consisting of carbon and only weighing 75 kilograms. Up to now, 80 of them have been produced in the last one and a half year. The supporters of this class debuted, offshore Warnemuende. Patrik Heinrichs from Berlin leads ahead of Eberhard Bieberitz from Schwerin.

Smaller and newer boat classes have the opportunity to present themselves at Warnemuender Woche. The Ixylon, which is sailed by two men, is one of them and so is the Devoti-One. More and more sailors are increasingly interested in the dinghy, which exists in three different designs. 17 Ixylons are measuring themselves against each other on the Baltic Sea at the moment. Volker Schoen and Andreas Schickel from Sternberg are leading the field after five races in front of Stefan and Bärbel Claus from Wittenfoerden.

Altogether 138 sailors are competing with each other in the traditional, international classes 505, OK-Dinghy and Pirat. In the 505, Lutz Stengel and Frank Feller are ahead of Norbert Dasenbrook and Sven Meier by seven points after seven races. Three times World Champion in the 470, Ines Pingel and her bowman Thomas Heldt from Schwerin, are in first position just ahead of Marko and Thomas Anderssohn from Cottbus. After five races in the OK class, Jörgen Svendsen from Denmark is leading in front of Greg Wilcox from New Zealand.

The leading participants of the Platu25 and Skippi 650 illustrated their title ambitions very clearly before tomorrow’s finals. GER 153 with helmsman Ingo Lochmann, is leading in the battle for the German Open, a comfortable 15 points ahead of the helmsmen André Teutenberg and Robert Heymann and their teams. The Polish Skippi 650 team POL 9956 with helmsman Pawel Tarnowski have a lead of 16 points. But the battle for silver and bronze couldn’t be more exciting with Erik Witzmann and Maciej Polanski separated by only two points.

Results at Warnemuender Woche website