Warnemuender Woche day 2 tough conditions

by Warnemuender Woche amended Sail-World on 4 Jul 2011 Warnemuender Woche 2011 kicked off amid dramatic weather conditions with steady rain and gusting winds afflicting the organizers, participants and the audience.

After a huge part of the program both onshore and offshore had to be called off on Saturday, the weekend ended with a children’s day and culture while the sun was shining.

Eventually, the sailors were allowed to hit the waterways. After the forced stormy Saturday off, the fog finally lifted on early Sunday afternoon and the almost 700 sailors of the eight boat classes of the first part of the Warnemuender Woche got started at last.

'We brave wind and rain – for the sake of the Warnemuender Woche', with this pithy words Jürgen Seidel, Minister of Economics, Labor and Tourism of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, officially opened the 74th Warnemuender Woche in a short and concise way on Saturday morning.

Franziska Goltz opened the 74th Warnemuender Woche with a classical start-finish victory as she crossed the finish line first. 'The weather is pretty crazy. Now there are waves too high but too little wind – but I am pleased with my great performance', said the sailor from Schwerin as she looked back on the first race of the day for the female Olympic boat class Laser Radial.

More than 30 young surfers of the BIC Techno class’ International German Youth Championship (IDJM) were also delighted to finally getting started. 'We have to do at least four races in order to do the Championship. I am optimistic about achieving this – up to now we’ve finished two races', Steffen Kinzl, the person in charge on the surfer track Alpha, explained.

'Finally the sailing can begin', Uli Finckh, Head of the Racing Committee sighed on the afternoon of the second day of regattas. At 2.30 p.m., the German Meteorological Service gave the all-clear signal and Finckh took the starting delay flag off the mast and sent all the sailors offshore immediately. 'Daylight hours are longer; we want to try to make up for the missed races', said Uli Finckh introducing the idea of a long evening at sea.

The audience ashore was jam-packed on the promenade and the Alter Strom during the afternoon. The participants and spectators of the traditional Niegen Uemgang proved themselves to be weatherproof on Saturday morning. 'Everyone can do it when the sun’s out, but we walk even in rain', Inge Regenthal of the Warnemuender Verein cheerfully explained on Saturday. Lutz Scheibe of the 'Machern', organizers of the Waschzuberrennen commented, 'The event 2011 is definitely entering the history books'.

Four tubs were flooded before the official start of the race, six brave tub teams lined up delayed to do a show in front of 800 spectators, but in the end they were defeated by the bad weather conditions.

They were eagerly waiting to score after the sand handballers had to call off their tournament completely on Saturday, they tried to make up for the games they missed yesterday in the 17th Beach Handball competition by starting again, this time with abbreviated games. But due to the heavy rain showers and the resulting flooding of the sand courts, all further games were cancelled at noon.

Warnemuender Woche website