126th Travemünder Woche 2015 - Day 2
by Travemünder Woche Media 20 Jul 2015 12:41 BST
18-26 July 2015
On the second day of the Travemuender Woche 2015, the race directors and sailors had to learn a new virtue: patience. The departure of the high winds and the troughs moving up brought prolonged rain but hardly any wind in the Bay of Lübeck. This delayed the starts on the triangle courses for more than three hours. Only by the afternoon could the general race director Brian Schweder first send the crews in nine classes onto the water. But the organisers had time to spruce up the winner's podium again since the first overall winners of the 126th Travemuender Woche were decided with the second part of the middle-distance races of the yachts, which had headed onto the courses despite the weak winds in the morning.
Due to the shortening of a race course because of the lack of wind, the yachts no longer sailed a real middle-distance race but were still on the course for between three and a half and four and a half hours. "We only had one to two knots of wind at the start; from time to time it got up to ten knots. However, at the end we ran into danger of calm winds again. We therefore decided to shorten the race", reported race director Wolle Bahr. The crews were completely satisfied with this decision. This allowed them to return to the harbour in time and enjoy their awards ceremony. "The race directors have done everything well. Otherwise, there would have been a full evening programme at sea", said Stefan Meining (Lübeck), who gained a stage win in the OSC II class with his crew on the boat "Na und" and thereby secured overall victory of the weekend in this class. "We liked the conditions today." The "Na und" skipper found the reorganisation of the middle-distance programme with the return to Travemünde on Saturday fine but also saw advantages in having an overnight stopover at another harbour. "It is nice sitting with the other crews for a while. Everything goes so quickly in Travemünde." In addition to "Na und", the "x-wärts" boat belonging to Lars Schöppener (Wismar) collected the trophy in the OSC I and the "Snabelskoen" belonging to Björn Carstensen (Heiligenhafen) in the OSC IV.
The change in the weather at the weekend significantly jumbled the field for the ambitious crews in the ORC class. The winner of Saturday, the "Sportsfreund" boat belonging to Axel Seehafer from Heiligenhafen, had to settle for tenth place this time and therefore slipped down to fourth position overall. Constant top positions led the "Ella" belonging to Georg Westphal (Lübeck) to the top. Two second place finishes at the weekend were the equivalent of the ORC overall victory ahead of the "Jennifer" by Swen Schnell (Lübeck). "The conditions were not easy but sailable. The race directors found the right moment to shorten the race. We are pleased with our performance. We have only been sailing together for one year and want to further intensify our commitment", reported the former Tornado sailor Schnell. After participating in the Nordseewoche and now the Travemuender Woche, the season highlight of the German Championship in Flensburg in September lies ahead. And in two years the "Jennifer" crew also want to take part in international events and the European Championships.
In addition to the seagoing yachts, the keelboats of the Open Fun and the Trias also completed a small programme with one race. The German crews managed to revenge for the first day in the Euro of the Open Fun. Tobias Hoh from Munich sailed to a day win ahead of Jan Kramer (Bad Zwischenahn). The successful Italian crews Roberto Benedetti and Marco Redaelli lined up behind, defending a close Italian double lead. "Tomorrow we will definitely be attacking Redaelli for second place", said Hoh, who is in joint third place with Kramer. However, the wind forecast could bring the Italians an advantage. "We have a clear weight advantage in light winds as we are around 100 kilograms lighter," Hoh said. "Furthermore, we are used to light winds from Lake Starnberg. A keen eye for wind patches was all that was needed today." A stronger breeze is expected again on Monday.
The wind had no effect on the top of the Trias class. Holger Köhne from Potsdam continued the triumph of the first day and added three wins in three races with his family crew of Uwe and Jan Köhne. However, no races took places for the other classes. The IC canoe had to postpone their start for the European title competition as well as the Typhoon canoe for the German championship. A title lead-off will now start at all levels on Monday. In addition to the canoes, the RS Feva wants to step into the Travemuender Woche action. And they will even head into the Bay of Lübeck for the world championship.
The light winds also upset the plans of the national sailing league, which had to stop the planned programme early. But two full flights were sailed in the first league at least, resulting in a trio from Schleswig-Holstein at the top. The FC Itzehoe leads ahead of the Kieler YC and the Flensburger SC. In contrast, the Bavarian flag waves at the top in the second league. The Bayerische YC is just in front of the Lindauer SC. In the Hanseatic city duel, the Lübecker SV has the better cards in the hand. After five races, the team of Nils Hartog holds fifth place, whereas the Lübecker YC with Oltmann Thyen is ranked in twelfth place.
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