Kristian Nergaard Takes His Sixth 5.5 Metre World Championship Title

Due to a storm warning the 5.5 Metre World Championship in Boltenhagen, Germany was completed a day early with Norway’s Kristian Nergaard, Trond Solli Sæther and Johan Barne taking the title.

The top three remained unchanged after the final day with the Artemis XIV under Nergaard, Solli Sæther and Barne winning the world championship. Two time World Champion Flavio Marazzi, Stefan Hatka and Marc Friedrich finished second with the Ali-Baba (SUI) and Oro Nero helmed by German sailing legend Jochen Schümann with owner Henning Ueck and Ole Hansen took third place.

“You can beat them. You need to tell yourself that it is possible to beat them,” said Nergaard about his competitors with Olympic backgrounds like Schümann and Marazzi. Even though the crew went into the world championship having just lost the Scandinavian Gold Cup to Johan Gullichsen’s Addam4 (FIN) it was the 13 points they scored in the second race of the world championship which caused them the most stress during the competition.

“Johan and I have been friends for a very long time, I was very happy for him to have won the Gold Cup,” said Nergaard. “Knowing that you’re going to have another six world championship races having that 13th place in your backpack really puts a lot of pressure on you because you know that if you screw up you can’t throw that out, you have got to count every race that you do. We just had to deliver everytime.”

Winner of the Evolution division was the Criollo (GER) under skipper Andreas Christiansen, Carsten Kemmling and Haymo Jepsen. They beat the next Evolution boat, winner of the Hankø Evolution Cup 2012, Matti Muoniovaara’s My Shout (AUS), by 33 points and finished in 16th place overall with four Modern yachts behind them. Christiansen and his crew also scored their discard very early on in race two. Christiansen said, “We made a bad tactical decision and chose the wrong side which resulted in a 29th place even though we were eighth to round the last mark. That put a lot of pressure on us. That’s why we were happy to follow that result up with a series of good ones.”

Lighter winds prevailed on the last day of racing – not the ideal conditions for boats of the Evolution division which are heavier than the Modern yachts. “It was important to keep our competition at bay and we did that”, said the delighted helmsman.

Among the Classic boats, which were built during the Olympic years of the International 5.5m Class, Lutz von Meyerinck who sailed his Blueprint (GER) with son Felix von Meyerinck and Oscar de Felice, lead from the first to the last race. After just having won the Royal Kaag Classic Cup 2012 the crew started confidently into the races and managed to achieve three top 20 results. The 45 year old yacht, one of the first in the 5.5 metre class to have been designed with a separate rudder, was even able to charge ahead of all Evolution boats in the results of day one. They came 21st in the overall results and won the Quail Cup for the best Classic boat during the world championship.

The Five Nations Cup, where the best results out of selected National Open championships are counted, was won by Duchess of B (NED) for the Modern division, Above the line (GER) for the Evolution boats and Cybèle II (FRA), who did not compete at the worlds, for the Classics.

To honour the 60 year anniversary of the first Olympic Games with 5.5m participation there was a special prize awarded to those boats which are still in the same condition today as the Rating Rules of the class demanded during their Olympic time. Representing each of the Olympic Games during that period the following boats received specially engraved silver prizes: Linge design Madrisa (GER) for the year 1952, Sim-Sala-Bim (GER), a Boesch design for 1956, the Copponex boat Korrigan (FRA) for the 1960 Games, the Meltemi (GER), a Bjarne Aas design for 1964 and the Corona (GER), designed by Bill Luders, for the Games of 1968.