Kieler Woche 2015 - Day 1
by Hermann Hell 20 Jun 2015 15:15 PDT
20-28 June 2015
Sime Fantela and Igor Marenic (CRO) take two bullets on day 1 of Kieler Woche 2015 © Otto Kasch
Sun, wind and waves: The first day of the 133. Kieler Woche offered everything to make a sailor happy. So the day in the office for the sailors in the Olympic classes could be finished quickly. All planned races were done in less than three hours - with top results for the teams of the national German sailing team, who took the lead in nine Olympic and Paralympic classes.
"That was a good start in all aspects", Dirk Ramhorst is happy. But the new head of organisation of the Kieler Woche did nevertheless mark an issue. "The expectations are high after this day, it can only get worse." He would have loved to let the sailors sail even more, but had to stick to the framework.
"A good start and a fast sail!" That is the simple winning formula of Max Boehme. Together with helmsman Justus Schmidt, the 49er crew from the Kiel Yacht Club is on his way up into the top fleet since this year. At the World Cup in Hyères, they managed to get their best result of their career with rank six. After three races at the Kieler Woche, they even took the leading position, keeping the Danish 2008 Olympic winner, Jonas Warrer with crew Anders Thomsen and the 2014 European Champions Erik Heil/Thomas Ploessel (Kiel) in control on rank two and four. All three teams are a training community and can now hope to take home the overall prize money of 6000 Euro at the end of the Kieler Woche and extend their training sessions even more.
The twins Jule and Lotta Goerge did deliver a surprisingly strong series in the women's 49er skiff. Crew Lotta Goerge did break her left arm when capsizing at the Eurosaf regatta at Lake Garda in May this year, but now skilfully pulls the sheets again. Their start was fulminant by winning the race, followed by two third ranks. They are now on rank two, just behind the Dutch crew Annemiek Bekkering/Daniel Bramervaer.
Paul Kohlhoff/Carolina Werner did sail on their home territory without any mistake. Three starts, three victories was the amazing statement of the young mixed crew in the future Olympic catamaran Nacra17. After a good spring, the sailors from Kiel are well prepared for the World Championship in Aarhus in July.
Rebooking the tickets for the Worlds in Toronto/Kanada could have been the right decision for Laser sailor Tobias Schadewaldt (Oldenburg). While Germany's strongest sailor at the moment, Philipp Buhl (Kiel), will be flying to Canada on the day of the Medal Races and did miss out on the Kieler Woche, Schadewaldt is currently on rank one after winning two races and can thus hope to receive the prize money in the end.
A safe German victory will be by Heiko Kroeger (Ammersbek). Having already won the Kieler Woche seven times, the Paralympic sailor from 2000 is again leading the 2.4mR fleet.
But the German sailors in the 470, the Finn and the Laser Radial are currently not in the position to fight for the title at the Kieler Woche. The Croation 470 World Champion from 2009, Sime Fantela/Igor Marenic, have their class well under control a few days before the European Championship in Aarhus just like Lara Vadlau/Jolanta Ogar, the Austrian World Champions of the previous year, the small women's team in this class. And Deniss Karpak from Estonia is heading for his third Kieler Woche victory in the Finn - after his successes in 2012 and 2014. The Danish Jonas Hoegh-Christensen, who became second at the Olympics in 2012, did not really reach his speed yet after two races. On rank eight he even is watching the junior talent Phillip Kasueske (Berlin) from behind, who is currently on rank four.
For the German Laser women it will be a hard fight to even get into the Medal Race of the best ten. Pia Kuhlmann (Schaumburg-Lippe) is on rank twelve the best German sailor in the fleet, which is dominated by by Croatian Tina Mihelic.
Results for all classes at www.kieler-woche.de