First Winners Announced

The 115th Travemuende Week has its first winners. The ten classes that sailed on the off-shore course finished their races on Luebeck Bay in typical North German rain and moderate winds on Sunday, 25 July.

The most impressive yacht was Horst MANN’S L+M Hispaniola in the premium class IMS 1. Though she hadn’t even been able to take part in the first race on Friday, she was the undisputed overall winner with four overwhelming firsts on the weekend. Although it had been overcast on Sunday with rain to set in the early afternoon, already some 300,000 visitors had been visiting Travemuende Week during the first three days. Strolling along the festival mile on the river Trave, they enjoyed entertainment and performances on twelve stages.

“That certainly was a good dress-rehearsal for the International German Off-shore Championships (IDM),” skipper Thomas JUNGBLUT proudly praised his L+M Hispaniola crew who in June finished runners up in the IMS 600 European championship in Kiel. The sail maker from Hamburg kept last year’s winner Varuna by Jens KELLINGHUSEN (NRV Hamburg) successfully at bay by three points. His fellow Hamburg sailor Dietrich TAUBER skippered his IMX-45 Alice to third place. All three of them will soon meet again at the Rolex Baltic Week in Neustadt/Holstein to sail the IDM.

On the second day of the J/22 European Championships, the Danish team of Christensen/Jakobsen/Heron strengthened their overall lead three points ahead of the Dutch crew Kooijman/Loose/Baggers. The German trio Menzner/Johannsen-Voss/Wolter from Stein fell behind to rank 20, similar to their counterparts in the 29er Eurocup: Whereas the British team Jaques/Sign was able to hold on to the lead in front of Lehtinen/Pennanen from Finland, Germany’s Benjamin Friedhoff and Johanna Mundig lost ground and are now only on rank 16. On the other hand, Stefan KOECHLIN and Axel PRIEGANN from Molfsee, Germany, defended their strong lead in the 505er Eurocup by putting ten points between themselves and second-placed Jens Findel and Wolfgang Bogacki from Wolfsburg, Germany.

It was racing bow-to-bow between Berit BERG from Kiel and Svenja Puls from Luebeck Yacht Club at the Europe German Cup. With exactly the same score, Kiel’s Berg is currently in the lead as she has one more win than Puls. “I really messed up the last race today, basically because I have been freezing like mad,” said the girl from Ratzeburg who starts for Luebeck, unhappy with her own performance. “All I need now is a hot bath.” Apart from the cold weather, she was also hit by bad luck: The first race of the preceding day had been cancelled, because the windward buoy had been marked incorrectly, and the 19-year-old had thus lost her win.

Full results from all fleets are available on the event website at the address below.