Kiwi hangs on to lead

Karl Purdie ahead at the OK Worlds at Warnemuender Woche

The weather forecast produced big grins in the morning on some of the sailor’s faces. Especially the Kiwis seemed to like the expected conditions. On course Bravo the OK class Worlds started into its second day in strong F6 westerlies and waves of 1.5m. But some of the starters struggled with the heavy weather and had to quit early.

Bernd Käther, Race Officer of course Bravo started two races. With two second placed Karl Purdie from New Zealand, who won the Pre-worlds at the beginning of this week, could extend his lead. He collected just six points from four races.

The defending world champion showed his title ambitions scoring a bullet and a fourth place on the second race day. Nick Craig counts 14 points in total and lies overall: "It was exhausting and pretty challenging today but I love strong winds although I am more of an all-rounder", said Craig. For 17 year he has sailed in the OK dinghy - this long relationship has rewarded him with one European and three world titles. The 34-year old has long dominated the class. "The Kiwis have come up strongly and the races are getting tighter, but it will be interesting to see, what happens when the wind is getting lighter", he said. "Karl Purdie is very strong in all conditions and Karsten Hitz is among the favourite as well, I guess."

The first race of the day went to 27-year old Steve McDowell from New Zealand, now placed seventh while Australian Andre Blasse has 18 points so far and is third overall.

"The sailors experienced great and very challenging sailing conditions, which is adequate for a world championship and very common in Warnemuende", states Dirk Kaiser, PRO of the Warnemuender Woche. "But for some of the sailors it was a little too much today."

Martin Kringel from Rostock succeeded in being first yacht home in the long distance race round Bornholm, but the record for the 270 mile race couldn’t be beaten by the blonde skipper of the Volvo Ocean 60 Rostocker. The current record was set up by former employer’s union president Klaus Murmann with his UCA pocket maxi in 2001, when he finished the passage around the Danish island in 28 hours, 37 minutes and 23 seconds. Due to the strong westerly winds, the yachts arrived at Bornholm fast, but then they had a long upwind back home. Rostocker reached Warnemuende on Thursday night at 11.34:56 pm five hours outside the record.

"I was actually satisfied about having more wind than the forecast said, but it was clear that we had to struggle on the way back so that the record was too hard to achieve", said Kringel after arriving. Close on his heels was the 56ft yacht Scho-ka-kola of Uwe Lebens from Norderstedt. Over the course of the race Kringel and his crew frequently changed the lead with them. The light-grey racer arrived half an hour later in Warnemuende. but in the big conditions, so far 14 of the 66 started yachts have had to abandon the race.