LADY IN RED Tops J/70s @ Kieler Woche!

(Kiel, Germany)- In its 144th year, Kieler Woche took place for a week at the end of June. During Kiel Week, the state capital of Kiel became a “home for everyone”. This year’s unique blend of world-class sailing event and colorful summer festival invited visitors to arrive, let go, and experience. Around 3.3 million visitors celebrated throughout the city.

The importance of Kiel Week as a sailing/ sporting showcase on the Baltic Sea is manifest by its enormous popularity: with over 4,000 sailors from 65 nations, approximately 1,500 boats, 29 classes, more than 350 starts, and 14 race courses.

As the world’s largest sailing regatta, it’s a true “Woodstock” of sailing! Featuring not just sailing competitions, but live music and countless food stands off the water. Remarkably, it’s Germany’s second-largest public festival (the “big dog” is the world-famous Oktoberfest). The event has proven popular with J/sailors for decades, starting with the J/24 class in the 1980s! More recently, the rapidly-growing J/70 class has joined in on the fun and festivities and very competitive sailing.

J/70 Class
Continuing to explode in popularity all over Europe, a new record of fifty-six J/70s from mostly Denmark and Germany showed up for a week of sailing. Perhaps the biggest shocker for the competitors was the domination of Sten Mohr’s Royal Danish Yacht Club team on LADY IN RED (Soren & Malthe Ebdrup, Bastian Baech, and Caroline Mikkelsen) that easily earned the gold medal. After eleven races, they had eight podium finishes, including four bullets for a total of just 23 pts net!

The balance of the podium was a battle between the top two German teams. Winning that war of attrition to take the silver with 50 pts net was Kai-Uwe Hollweg’s DIVA with crew Alex Beilken, Magnus Simon, and Jork Homeyer. The bronze medal winners could easily have won the regatta had it not been for two disastrous races in their scoreline- a BFD 57 & 33rd! That ignominious distinction belonged to one of Germany’s top J/70 teams- Michael Grau’s PAINT IT BLACK. His crew consisted of J/70 World Champion crew Willem van Waay from San Diego, Florian Thoelen, and Goncalo Ribeiro. Other than their two drop races, their tally was a very impressive four 1sts, three 2nds, and 4-7 for a total of 54 pts.

Rounding out the top five were Marc Keene’s RASCAL crew from Denmark and Lukas Feuerherdt’s GER 717, in fourth and fifth, respectively.

J/24 Class
The nineteen J/24s were treated to a virtual “schooling” on how to sail a J/24 fast and smart. After compiling all podium finishes (seven 1sts, two 2nds, and 3rd) and not sailing the last race, Stefan Karsunke’s SCHWERE JUNGS crew (Tim Habekost, Christian Carstens, Malte Gibbe, and Carsten Kerschies) won by a country mile with just 14 pts net! The silver medal winners were Till Pomarius’s HUNGRIGER WOLF team (Moritz Book, Thorsten Paech, Jannis Holthusen, and Jonas Lyssewski) with 26 pts net. Then, garnering the bronze medal was Hauke Kruess’s VIVA ON AQUA crew (Florian Prinzlin, Jens Tschentscher, Malte Krogmann, and Malte Reitzig) with 37 pts net.

Rounding out the top five were Frank Schonfeld’s JOOL in fourth and Swedish Per-Hakan Persson’s FRONT RUNNER in fifth place.

For more Kiel Week Regatta sailing information
https://www.kieler-woche.de/en/index.php