Craig aims for record fourth win

Robert Deaves looks at the form heading into the OK World Championships

Ask any OK Dinghy sailor what their favourite venue is and the answer from many of them will be Warnemünde, in the east of Germany. Ask them why, and they will say because the water offers some of the best sailing conditions anywhere in the world, the onshore facilities are great, the people are friendly, the town is wonderful and the beer is plentiful.

Hence Warnemünde was a particularly popular choice as the venue for the 46th OK Dinghy World Championships, scheduled to open next weekend. So far 89 sailors from Australia, Denmark, Great Britain, Germany, New Zealand, Poland and Sweden have entered for what promises to be a tough and hard fought for event.

Undoubtedly the three times and current World Champion, Nick Craig (GBR) is the favourite to take the title for a fourth year in a row. Craig is now regularly competing in four different classes, and he hasn't been able to put in the amount of time he wants to in order to fully prepare for this event. However he is certainly one of the fittest and strongest sailors in the international fleet and produces a level of consistency across a range of wind strengths that few other sailors can match.

Craig commented, "As always, the competition in the OK fleet is one of the toughest of the year. The class attracts some great sailors from many different countries and this is one of the main attractions of the class to me. There are always new faces, as well as old ones and it makes for fantastic racing as well as an awesome social scene." The current depth of the class was emphasized by Craig's uncharacteristic third place in the
recently concluded Kiel Week.

However, if Craig manages to win for a fourth year running he will make history. Only one other person, Bo-Staffan Andersson (SWE), has won the title three years running and only two sailors have won the title four times, albeit not consecutively, (Andersson in 1988 and 1991- 93 and Leith Armit (NZL) in 1983, 1985, 1990 and 1994), but no one has yet won it four times running.

His main competition is likely to come from local favourite Karsten Hitz (GER). Twice a world champion himself, Hitz finished fourth in 2007 and has a new and largely untested German built hull. The German fleet is unsurprisingly the largest national contingent in Warnemünde with 27 entries. Other likely contenders for the top ten include Gunter Arndt who was sixth last year, Martin von Zimmermann the 2006 European Champion and Oliver Gronholz who was tenth last year.

Elsewhere the fleet is as deep as ever with Thomas Hansson-Mild (SWE) likely to perform well, after winning Kiel Week with a string of good finishes. In fact many sailors used Kiel as a warm up event for the worlds. Pawel Pawlaczyk (POL) produced one of his best ever performances, won a race and ended up second. Meanwhile Jørgen Lindhardtsen (DEN) is likely to put up a strong challenge, although he has been struggling with injuries for most of the year.

The expected conditions in Warnemünde should produce more than a handful of wind and wave filled days and this is normally when the New Zealand and Australian teams are strongest. This year Mark Perrow (NZL) and Karl Purdie (NZL) are back again after finishing second and third in Leba last year. Purdie is sporting one of the new Icebreaker hulls, as are many of the Kiwis travelling to Germany. Andre Blasse (AUS), ninth last year, is also likely to pose a threat.

Apart from Craig, the British contingent will be looking for those elusive top ten places, and the highly sought after OKDIA ties that accompany them, with Terry Curtis (GBR) hoping to better his 11th last year and Jon Fish (GBR) just trying to put in a consistent performance without capsizing or making any other major mistakes, as he has been prone to do in the past.

There are also lots of new names on the entry list, so there could also be a few surprises at the top.

As usual the local organisers have arranged a full social programme that will include the official launch of the class's highly praised 50th anniversary book 'Completely OK', and several more inductees into the OK Dinghy 'Hall of Fame' at a special dinner and awards ceremony during the week.

The major regatta sponsor is Bombardier (www.bombardier.com), a world-leading plane and train manufacturer. Bombardier has generously covered the majority of costs for the social events, showers and camping.

Most of the fleet will begin gathering in Warnemünde from Thursday 3 July to take part in the three days of Warnemünde Week before measurement of equipment takes place on Monday. The first race is scheduled for 11.00 on Tuesday 8 July. Ten races are scheduled between then and Saturday 12 July.

Entries:

AUS 641 Darren Hunt

AUS 692 Bill Tyler

AUS 695 David O'Donnell

AUS 708 Morgan Staley

AUS 716 Peter Wallace

AUS 724 Glenn Yates

AUS 725 David Ketteridge

AUS 726 Bob Buchanan

AUS 729 Andre Blasse

AUS 733 David Clancy

AUS 735 Robert Davis

DEN 1364 Jørgen Lindhardtsen

DEN 1304 Christian Midtgaard

DEN 1340 Christian Olesen

DEN 1361 René Johannsen

DEN 1214 Jørgen Holm

DEN 1330 Troels Lykke

DEN 1346 Anders Andersen

GBR 2118 Terry Curtis

GBR 2105 Ian Harris

GBR 2126 Mike Edwards

GBR 2125 Neil Goodhead

GBR 2122 Jon Fish

GBR 2117 Alex Scoles

GBR 2085 Gavin Waldron

GBR 2121 Tony Rich

GBR 2084 Keith Byers

GBR 2129 Deryck Lovegrove

GBR 2104 Paul Pike

GBR 2107 Daren Prior

GBR 2012 Jake Cracknell

GBR 2127 Keith Dutton

GBR 2128 Ed Dutton

GBR 2119 Robert Deaves

GBR 2120 Dan Ager

GBR 2116 Nick Craig

GER 20 Hartmann Christian

GER 89 Reinhard Graßmel

GER 539 Carsten Saß

GER 577 Yves Kaminski

GER 590 Jan Wirbeleit

GER 606 Katharina Huß

GER 645 Arne Lindemann

GER 659 Falk Hagemann

GER 665 Peter Stephan

GER 670 Hinnerk Ries

GER 671 Andreas Deubel

GER 672 Gunter Arndt

GER 688 Dirk Dame

GER 693 Martin von Zimmermann

GER 694 Gunnar Specht

GER 695 Erik Bork

GER 699 Juliane Hofmann

GER 714 Christian Huß

GER 717 Oliver Gronholz

GER 718 Peter Scheuerl

GER 730 Jörg Rademacher

GER 731 Thomas Glas

GER 735 Dirk Gericke

GER 744 Karsten Hitz

GER 745 Rainer Pospiech

GER 747 Andreas Pich

GER 750 Ralf Tietje

NZL 532 Alistair Deaves

NZL 525 Steve McDowell

NZL511 Luke O`Connell

NZL 518 Grant Pedersen

NZL 527 Mark Perrow

NZL502 Trent Pryce

NZL 531 Karl Purdie

NZL 517 Matthew Steven

NZL 529 Mike Wilde

NZL 522 Greg Wilcox

POL Jerzy Bojanowski

POL Radek Drozdzik

POL Tomek Gaj

POL Marek Jarocki

POL Jakub Kania

POL Darek Kras

POL Pawel Pawlaczyk

POL Mieczyslaw Poplonyk

POL Piotr Przewozny

POL Bartek Rakocy

SWE 11 Bengt Strömberg

SWE 66 Jan-Eric Nystedt

SWE 99 Hans Elkjaer

SWE 100 Thomas Hanson-Mild

SWE 2763 Jan-Erik Egholm

SWE Claes Ahlström