No wind at final day, fifth medal for host nation

by Roland Regnemer & Simon Butterworth on 3 Aug 2016 2016 Hobie Multi-Europeans - The Final Series to this year’s Hobie Multi-Europeans ended like it was started: no wind, no racing. At the end, the Hobie 16 and also the Wild Cats sailed eight races. While the decision for Gold in the Hobie 16 was tight racing from the beginning, in the Wild Cat young German team dominated the fleet all the time.

With more than 80 boats, the Hobie 16 was the biggest fleet in this year's Hobie Multi-Europeans in Neusiedl am See. French team, Cedric Bader and Laurent Bader, had a tight duel with current world champions from Denmark, Daniel Bjornholt with crew Josephine Frederiksen. In the end both teams finished with 37 points, French boys took gold with the better single results. The Bader brothers secured their third consecutive title, their fourth overall. Ten points behind German Team Ingo and Sabine Delius-Wenig secured bronze.

Best Austrian Team was Klemens and Gundela Kitzmüller. A ufd-qualification in the last race of the series pushed them back to 16th place and out of the top-ten. Only one point behind were Thomas Waller and Michaela Sattler also from Austria. “Due to the fact that we focused the whole season on our youth teams, we found not enough time for our own campaign for the home Europeans. We had the chance to sail into the top ten, we failed because of the last day. The wind was really tricky, from the first day on” said Gundela Kitzmüller.

Fifth medal for Austria, Gold for Brüning/Fischer

Four races won out of eight and twenty points ahead of second place team from Austria: Sebastian Brüning and Jacob Fischer dominated the Wild Cat fleet in a very impressive way. “On every leg of the race course we had different wind conditions. It was pretty challenging, but we had really good days here in Austria. At the end we managed to make our own thing, without compromises”, commented Jacob Fischer. Just behind, it was a very tough race for Silver and Bronze.

From Silver for Mira Dreier and Korbinian Kordes to the fifth place the difference was four points. Bronze medal again was taken by a German team Fritz-Rüdiger Klocke and Sebastian Tietzsche. “The wind was so shifty, it was really hard. For us and also the race committee. At the end they did a very good job under this conditions. We started to sail together in the Wild Cat this year and our goal was to be in the top ten at our home championships. Silver is simply amazing”, explained Mira Dreier, still excited after the price giving.

Four lucky Hobie sailors were presented with two amazing prizes of a one week holiday at Wildwind Vassiliki and Wildwind Mauritius by Peter Kukla, Wildwind Adventures Germany.

Final Results

Hobie 16 (8 Races, 1 Disc., 64 Teams from 9 Nations):

1. Cedric Bader / Laurent Bader (FRA) - 37 Pts.
2. Daniel Bjornholt / Josephine Frederiksen (DEN) - 37
3. Ingo Delius / Sabine Delius-Wenig (GER) - 47

Hobie Wild Cat (8 Races, 1 Disc., 15 Teams from 2 Nations)

1. Sebastian Brüning / Jacob Fischer (GER) - 11,3
2. Mira Dreier / Korbinian Korder (AUT) - 31
3. Fritz-Rüdiger Klocke / Sebastian Tietzsch (GER) - 32
4. Michael Walter / Angelika Walter-Rohr (AUT) - 35
5. Daniel Mulley / Barabara Nemec (AUT) - 35