59. Warnemünder Woche, July 11-13

29 OK’s from Germany and Britain came to Warnemünde from 11.7 to 13.7 to sail five, of the scheduled 6, races.

The Warnemünder racing area provides for perfect sailing as the course is laid directly in front of the harbour on the open Baltic. With wind from west over north to north east- the normal directions in northern Germany, a big and long wave is building up. Only sailing out to the start may be difficult in some wind, due to some current and the waves.

On the first two days of sailing the wind was blowing 3-5 Beaufort from the west. The OKs sail together with 470s and Europes on the traditional triangle course.

Thursday 11.7
Two races scheduled, wind 5 Beaufort from the west. After a storm on Tuesday, which prevented the two British boats from thinking about training (“waves breaking over the lighthouse”- the official statement was 4m waves), there was still a long wave in the morning (about 1m), getting lower over the day – perfect reaching conditions!

First race
Course length was like at the worlds. Martin von Zimmermann lead the fleet with Peter Scheuerl second, followed by Sönke Behrens. On the second beat Martin got some problems with the mainsheet and got caught by Peter and on the finishing beat by Sönke. Due to stable wind direction, the race was decided mainly by boatspeed and by trying to get to the left in order to avoid some current on the right.

Second race
The wind decreased a little, down to 3 Beaufort on the last beat. Again Martin lead before Peter with Jörn Wille third. Martin was well in front and Jörn made a clever move on the final beat to finish second.

Some free beer provided by the race committee and the beautiful promenade of Warnemünde made the evening very enjoyable.

Friday 12.7
Again the wind direction was west, about 5 Bft, and again with waves, but not as high as on Thursday. The sun came out during the day. The conditions were perfect.

Third race
Karsten Hitz, who hadn’t managed to get out of bed and on the road on Thursday, showed his dominance with some wind and waves on the beat to lead the fleet with nearly 100 meters from the first mark followed by Peter and Martin. Karsten won with Martin overtaking Peter on the finish.

Fourth race
Again Karsten did a horizon job. Martin second on the first beat, with Peter and Sönke following. Peter reached somewhat faster on the triangle to be second for the rest of the race with a hard fight with Martin on the run. Again Martin managed to be some centimeters in front of Peter on the line.

Saturday 13.7
Sun and westerly winds again. The wind decreased during the fifth race.

Fifth race
Martin lead at the first mark with Jörn Wille second, followed by Hinnerk Ries and Karsten Hitz. On the second beat Karsten took the lead on the first mark with Hinnerk second and Martin and Jörn following. After the run these four boats were close together with Peter following. Due to the dieing breeze the last beat became very tricky. Jörn Wille managed to be first on the line followed by Karsten, Hinnerk and Martin.

The sixth race was started in nearly no wind, which hah shifted 60 degrees north between the races. It was expected to shift back, but the race committee let the fleet go. As it was not possible to fetch the line on starbord at the gun, Peter managed a port start because he was the only one who waited behind the pin end. The first beat started to become a high reach. Unlike during Kiel Week, the race committee noticed this and imeadetly abandoned the race. As it was already 16:30, the committee decided not to try again.

With these five races, and one discard, Martin von Zimmerman, who improved his upwind speed in a breeze, even without wheight-jacket, won the 59. Warnemünder Woche from Peter and Jörn Wille.

The conditions with big waves and some wind have hopefully been a good training for the Worlds in Vaberg.

Pl Sailno Name R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 Pts-1
1 GER 693 Martin v. Zimmermann 3 1 2 2 4 7.75
2 GER 618 Peter Scheuerl 1 3 3 3 5 9.75
3 GER 699 Jörn Wille 10 2 5 4 1 11.75
4 GER 670 Hinnerk Ries 4 4 9 5 3 16
5 GER 449 SönkeBehrens 2 6 4 6 7 18
6 GER 634 Rüdider Prinz 5 7 7 10 6 25
7 GBR 2010 Alistair Deaves 6 5 8 11 12 30
8 GER 679 Jörg Sylvester 8 9 6 9 13 32
9 GER 672 Karsten Hitz DNC DNS 1 1 2 33.5
10 GER 695 Dirk Gericke 7 14 12 15 8 41
11 GER 622 Christian Hartmann 11 8 18 12 10 41
12 GER 453 Oliver Gronholz 14 12 13 14 9 48
13 GER 628 Matthias Müller 12 13 14 13 23 52
14 GBR 2071 Alan Atkin 9 11 17 18 20 55
15 GER 703 Torsten Teutloff DNS DNS 11 8 11 60
16 GER 690 Jan Dissel DNS DNS 10 7 16 63
17 GER 659 Falk Hagemann 17 16 21 17 15 65
18 GER 638 Uwe Friedrich 13 10 DNS DNS 14 67
19 GER 630 Norbert Petrausch 16 18 19 19 19 72
20 GER 633 Rainer Schroeter 15 DNS 15 DNS 17 77
21 GER 301 Andreas Kudella DNF DNS 16 16 24 77
22 GER 527 Eberhard Langer DNS 15 20 DNS 21 86
23 GER 143 Hendryk Poeschel DNF DNS 22 DNF 26 90
24 GER 654 Axel Reuter 18 17 DNS DNS DNS 95
25 GER 542 Juliane Hofmann DNS DNS 23 DNF 25 99
26 GER 632 Fabian Grohnholz DNF DNS DNF DNS DNS 105
27 GER 664 Thomas Neveling DNS DNS DNS DNS 18 108
28 GER 692 Horst Duwe DNS DNS DNS DNS 22 112