Hamlin and Zinn take the lead

SAP 505 World Championship gets underway in big conditions in Aarhus

Friday July 30th 2010, Author: Sailing Inteligence, Location: Denmark

With the breeze gusting up to 30 knots, the SAP 505 World Championship started with a bang in Aarhus, Denmark. Too much of a bang for many of the 126 teams who struggled to complete two gruelling opening heats in this toughest of regattas.

Among the many casualties were some of the favourites for the world title. Gear failure forced the 2007 World Champions, Denmark’s Jan Saugmann and Morten Ramsbæk, to retire after they had been leading race one. Runner-up in last year’s Worlds, Mike Holt and Carl Smit of the USA, profited from the Danes’ demise and moved into the lead, only to suffer their own set of breakdowns. They too, failed to complete either race.

Britain’s Ian Pinnell and Ian Mitchell, former world champions, took up the reins at the front of the pack and sailed a steady race to cross the line first, with USA’s Howie Hamlin and Andy Zinn in second.

In heat two, Hamlin and Zinn took up the lead for a good part of the race, with Germany’s three-time World Champion Wolfgang Hunger and Julian Kleiner in hot pursuit. Hunger attacked up the final beat and Hamlin failed to cover him as closely as he might have done, allowing the German crew to slip past for the winner’s gun.

Hamlin may not have won a race, but he’s leading the regatta after a tough day. He’s happy with that. Runner-up seven times and World Champion in 1999, the legend from Long Beach is competing at his 30th 505 World Championship. Today his experience showed. “Perfect 505 conditions,” he smiled. While others were facing a long evening of boat work, Hamlin’s nine-year-old hull emerged from a tough day unscathed. Zinn looked ready for another two races. “It wasn’t even that windy out there,” he said, an observation that few others would have agreed with. Even by the standards of a world 505 fleet, today was a tough one, with the 25-30 knot breeze combining with the waves to test the crews and equipment to breaking point.

Like the Americans, German team Stefan Bohm and Gerald Roos sailed very consistently to notch up two 3rd places, one point ahead of Hunger/Kleiner. As for Saugmann, who has now used up both of the discards available in this nine-race series, he was philosophical more than upset. “So many things went so wrong today, we have to laugh about it,” he said. “First one of the trapeze rings broke, and then later in the race the spinnaker pulley at the top of the mast broke and the halyard snapped.” With the spinnaker falling in the water they sailed over the soggy sail and did well to avoid a capsize. They had hoped to regroup and get fixed in time for the second race. But when they came ashore they discovered the halyard had sawed its way about 30cm down the front face of the mast. So they have to replace the mast with a new one before tomorrow’s single scheduled race.

Mike Holt is paying the price for racing in a brand new, untested boat that he has borrowed for the Worlds. “We had half an hour sailing in it yesterday,” he shrugged. “The boat is fine, we were going fast today, but the fittings let us down, just not strong enough.” After a broken mainsheet ratchet made the boat much harder to sail, they finally had to retire from race one when the highly-loaded rig adjustment fittings pulled out of their anchor points in the boat. Holt and Smit will be working hard tonight replacing equipment with bigger, heavier stuff that they can be confident will get them through the rest of the regatta. But Smit knew that today was the day that got away. “Those were our conditions, just like sailing at home in San Francisco Bay,” he said. “The breeze is meant to be dropping lighter in the next few days, so it’s going to be hard winning after what happened today.”

The war of attrition has begun. For those who aren’t working on fixing their boats this evening, they might get a chance to go back through all the tracking data and video footage from the race course today. Not that anyone needs to learn the lesson from such a brutal outing. If you keep your boat upright, and if you can keep your boat in one piece, then you’ll do well.

The SAP 505 World Championship takes place in Aarhus, Denmark, from 30 July to 5 August. This regatta is the latest in a series of major sailing championships hosted by the City of Aarhus over the past 10 years, with the Volvo ISAF Youth Worlds having taken place here in 2008 and with a number of major championships scheduled in the near future, including the A-Class Catamaran Worlds in 2011.

The 2010 SAP 505 World Championship is organised by Sailing Aarhus in cooperation with Sport Event Denmark, Sport Aarhus Event and the Danish Sailing Association. With a strong focus on innovation and new technology to promote sailing to a wider audience, Denmark and the City of Aarhus are bidding for the ISAF Worlds 2014, the most prestigious regatta next to the Olympic Games.

Top 50 results:

Pos	HelmName	CrewName	Nat	R1	R2	Tot
1	Hamlin, Howard	Zinn, Andy	USA	2	2	4
2	Böhm, Stefan	Roos, Gerald	GER	3	3	6
3	Hunger, Dr. Wolfgang	Kleiner, Julien	GER	6	1	7
4	Pinnell, Ian	Mitchell, Ian	GBR	1	7	8
5	Smith, Andy	Needham, Tim	GBR	5	4	9
6	Bojsen-Møller, Jørgen	Bojsen-Møller, Jacob	DEN	4	8	12
7	Goerge, Martin	Goerge, Rainer	GER	9	5	14
8	Rosen, Ebbe	Wenrup, Olle	SWE	12	6	18
9	Stauffer, Florian	Jacot, Philippe	SUI	7	13	20
10	Kellner, Christian	Schöler, Martin	GER	11	9	20
11	Schomaeker, Meike	Jess, Holger	GER	13	11	24
12	Diaz, Augie	Lawrence, Luke	USA	14	14	28
13	Cédric, Bart	Ueli, Marti	SUI	19	15	34
14	Conrads, Edward	Haines, Brian	USA	15	19	34
15	Bøjland, Tom	Friis, Anders	DEN	16	25	41
16	Lehmann, Claas	Oehme, Leon	GER	10	32	42
17	Christiansen, Mikkel	Christiansen, Mads	DEN	24	18	42
18	Hyysalo, Sampsa	Salonen, Antti	FIN	22	20	42
19	Holzapfel, Alexander	Worm, Stefan	GER	26	21	47
20	Ferrarone, Ted	McKeige, Doug	USA	23	26	49
21	Andersen, Jon	Andreasen, Lasse	DEN	23.0 DPI	27.0 DPI	50
22	Kemper, Florian	Krause, Michael	GER	25	25.0 RDGa	50
23	Chappell, Peter	Spence, Graeme	AUS	28	27	55
24	Heeschen, Klaus	Schmidt, Stefan	GER	36	23	59
25	Esdorn, Daniel	Esdorn, Joerg	USA	29	30	59
26	Buhl, Nikolaj Hoffmann	Buhl, Henrik	DEN	47.0 DPI	17.0 DPI	64
27	Owen, Tudor	Forwood, Nolan	GBR	33	33	66
28	Napier, Rob	Cram, Francis	GBR	34	34	68
29	Petermann, Gilles	Grob, Laurent	SUI	40	35	75
30	Johan, Calvert	Haas, Marcus	SWE	41	35.0 RDG	76
31	de Kergariou, Hervé	Geron, Basile	FRA	31	46	77
32	Christensen, Kim	Overbeck, Søren	DEN	48	31	79
33	Nieminen, Jukka	Lehtonen, Kari	FIN	49	39	88
34	Hastenpflug, Tom	Hastenpflug, Toni	SWE	45	44	89
35	Deane, Roger	Cartwright, Dennis	GBR	55	36	91
36	Kandzia, Lutz	Deutscher, Martin	GER	53	41	94
37	Roos, Ronald	Roos, Kirsten	GER	51	43	94
38	Guillou, Nicolas	Lapeyre, Bertrand	FRA	49.0 DPI	47.0 DPI	96
39	Ebeling, Petri	Heimsch, Juhani	FIN	56	47	103
40	Scutcher, Terry	Diebitsch, Christian	GBR	8	126.0 DSQ	134
41	Cameron, Kevin	Cooper, Marcus	AUS	126.0 DNC	10	136
42	Nelson, Macy	Barclay, Parry	USA	126.0 DNC	16	142
43	Funke, Peter	Funke, Thomas	RSA	126.0 DNC	17	143
44	Moore, Tyler	Ewenson, Geoff	USA	17	126.0 DNC	143
45	Niediek, Volker	Heising, Stefan	GER	20	126.0 DNF	146
46	Quirk	Reffold	AUS	21	126.0 DNF	147
47	Dr.Plattner, Hasso	Alarie, Peter	GER	126.0 DNF	24	150
48	Jungclaus, Andreas	Priegann, Axel	GER	27	126.0 DNC	153
49	Lott, Nigel	Franks, Bob	AUS	126.0 DNC	28	154
50	Broise, Xavier	Des Jamonières, Nicolas	FRA	30	126.0 DNF	156