Schuemann takes Berlin

Anne Hinton reports on this weekend's match racing

The 13th edition of Match Race Berlin was held over this weekend. With four entrants placed in the top 12 of the match race rankings, two teams from Alinghi, two further teams from the prospective German America’s Cup Challenge, Fresh17, as well as the winner from the previous year, it was a hot line-up. The weather, however, was on the chilly side, as to be expected from Berlin in late autumn.

Normal lake conditions consist of next to no breeze, but the Wannsee obliged with varying amounts of pressure over the weekend. The other variation was the direction - not just the general turn from southwest to north over the weekend, but also the very large numbers of significant shifts (often associated with significant changes in the quantity of pressure) during the course of a race, even if the overall ‘average’ remained in the same direction. “It is the worst conditions [in this respect] that I’ve ever had here”, said Karol Jablonski, who did not feel comfortable with his sailing.

The competitors were divided into two groups for round robins to begin with, based on the ISAF rankings. Rankings are an indisputable way of dividing competitors for such purposes, and probably the only realistic means of doing so, but do not always reflect the quality of individuals, since much is dependent on what events people have competed in. One group, with existing champion Markus Wieser, and last year’s runner-up, Mathieu Richard, both the winner and runner-up from the spring match race in Berlin - Jochen Schuemann and Stefan Meister - Britain’s Ian Williams and qualifier, H-boat sailor stalwart Hans-Juergen Swoboda, looked on paper rather tougher than the other, although, eventually, two teams from each round robin made it through to the semis and one each to the finals.

Racing started with 15 knots and more of breeze, though patchy and shifty across the course. One of the first matches was the German-German confrontation between two possible helmsmen for the prospective German America’s Cup challenge Fresh Seventeen. The two skippers, Andreas Willim and Jan-Eike Andresen had finished first and second, respectively, in the German Match Racing Championships this year. Andresen was out for revenge!

A pre-start collision was followed by numerous close encounters around the course, with Andresen prevailing at the finish. Regrettably for the young Germans, they did not make it beyond the first round robin at Match Race Berlin this year.

Simon Minoprio and his Vision Yachting team from Auckland had gained a place at Match Race Berlin this year by winning the Warren Jones match race event in Perth, Australia. The New Zealanders did well to win two races in their group despite not being used to the chilly temperatures, the H-boat or the vagaries of the lake. Jordi Calafat from Alinghi found the H-boat a bit of a handful at times in the moderate breezes, but pulled through. The top three who went through from this round robin to the second round were, as predicted, Jablonski, Nordbjaerg and Calafat.

In the second round robin, Britain’s Ian Williams had a hard time. While leading in one race, his brother, Mark, went overboard during a tack. Although he managed to hang on to the boat, the lead became a chase - not made good by the finish. Williams did win a thriller of a race against Stefan Meister (the top-ranked German competitor). Having incurred a penalty in the pre-start, Williams still had to get rid of this at the end of the race. Leading towards the finish, he went outside the committee boat and below the extension of the finish line, trying to clear his penalty against Meister (who had followed him) when turning upwind again, but not succeeding. Meister was behind at the zone around the committee boat, but pushed inside for a late overlap and was penalised for this.

Since he was still ahead of Williams after taking the penalty, he was given another penalty to ensure that he finished behind Williams.

Meister had earlier been involved in another thriller match with Mathieu Richard. Needing to clear a penalty at the end of the race, he caught Richard up and then luffed him just before the line - clearing his penalty and get the spinnaker back up (which Richard’s crew didn’t manage to do) and getting across the finish line first.

The last match of this round robin, held on the Saturday, was also a nail-bitting finale. Meister, with Schuemann’s former Soling crew, Gunnar Bahr and Ingo Borkowski on his team, was up against Schuemann with his Alinghi team of Nils Frei and Bernard Labro. The start was pretty even, with perhaps the edge going to Meister. Meister then established a lead around the course of up to three boatlengths. On the final downwind leg Schuemann caught up and just rolled Meister by less than two seconds on the line.

This result meant that Meister lost out on the third qualification spot for the second round from this group’s round robin, with Mathieu Richard, who he had earlier beaten, getting through in his place, along with Schuemann and defending champion, Markus Wieser.

The second round brought the two Alinghi teams against each other. Schuemann had the upper hand in the pre-start, initially pushing Calafat left. Calafat managed to escape with the aid of the very large spectator boat (full to its capacity with 500 people for the finals). However, he then crash-gybed and swung up in a rapid luff behind the committee boat, just ahead of Schuemann, who had to take drastic avoiding action. Racing was close but Calafat was ahead approaching the line, although still with his penalty outstanding. Nearing the finish, under increasing wind, with the odd gust reaching 25 knots, both boats partially lowered their spinnakers. A gybing duel ensued which only ended when Calafat was caught out in a bigger gust and rounded up - just managing to get behind Schuemann and avoid a collision. Result - race over and won by Schuemann.

Markus Wieser and team were not so happy this year in the racing. They made it through to the second round, but couldn’t get enough victories to go further. Calafat was the other casualty at the end of the second round.

Richard had picked up and went into the final day’s racing with top position from the second round robin. Perhaps surprisingly he chose to sail second-placed Nordbjaerg, putting Schuemann against Jablonski in the semis.



The last day of racing dawned with cold northerlies, leading to everyone scurrying to one of the boats carrying the unlimited quantities of free gluehwein (mulled wine), soup, tea and coffee. [Left in charge of an H-boat to sail singlehanded around the lake for a while at lunchtime, I was rather glad that the police boat didn’t come alongside for an alcohol test!] Lunch was also provided free to all who went out on the water. There were continuous shuttles to the main spectator boat, with lifejackets provided free for the transfer. Being out on the water with the sailors enables the spectators to feel ‘part’ of the whole event. They can actually see the whites of the eyes of the sailors who are racing and are entertained with commentary from a number of guests, including sailors who happen not to be racing. This was not the only spectator boat, as a flotilla of craft followed the finalists, or waited at the line, during the finals. There was even a visit from a third-scale sized square rigger, the Royal Louise, whose crew climbed the masts for a better viewpoint.

The event is run jointly by the Verein Seglerhaus am Wannsee and the Berliner Yacht Club on the other side of the lake. Organisers of many other match race events around the world would do well to take a leaf out of the book of the management of this event. Local sailors provide their boats for the event and the clubs do their best to ensure equality. The main responsibility of the Berliner Yacht Club is the race committee boat, run by Axel Paul. The VSaW is where the boats and sailors are based, under the direction of Frank Butzmann. The sailors come first in everything - excellent accommodation at the VSaW clubhouse, BMW sponsorship giving personal transfers between the accommodation and airports/train stations, much free food and drink, a night at a nightclub in Berlin, etc, etc. The basis for this is a huge team of volunteers from both clubs, without which Match Race Berlin could not occur. There is the attitude of: we do it right or not at all. This ensures that there is adequate sponsorship for the event - BMW was title sponsor and Credit Suisse another major sponsor (providing, amongst other things, watches for some of the crews) - and that everything is in place where and when it needs to be.

Returning to the racing, Jablonski commented that he had decided not to do so much match racing this year and had done more big boat racing instead and was still not feeling very comfortable at the event. Later in the day, Mathieu was to reiterate those feelings: “I just didn’t feel good today - with the boat, the sailing, everything”, he said.

Perhaps no surprise then that Schuemann easily beat Jablonski 2-0 in their semi and Nordbjaerg overcame Richard by the same score… although the second race between Nordbjaerg and Richard had a somewhat controversial issue near the bottom mark when Nordbjaerg suddenly came across to establish the inside at the mark and his spinnaker went over the rigging of Richard’s boat. The incident was green flagged by the umpires, who did not give any penalties on the last day of racing; quite a contrast with previous days, from which there had been comments about the unusually high number of penalties that were being given out.

For the petit-final, Richard’s bad day just got worse and Jablonski’s a little better, as Jablonski won 2-0 without too much contest.

In the finals, Schuemann dominated the pre-start of the first race and pushed Nordbjaerg over the line early. Schuemann was able to establish a good lead from this and was never headed.

The second race saw a split-tack start. Schuemann found better pressure and played the shifts well and was ahead when the boats came together near the top mark – a lead that he did not relinquish.

The third race was more contested. Both had reasonable starts and, once again, Schuemann was ahead at the first mark. However, Nordbjaerg came back at him downwind. Schuemann luffed, Nordbjaerg didn’t appear to respond fully and was able to slide across the bow of Schuemann. Although there appeared to have been contact, there was, again, no penalty from the umpires. Further down the leg Schuemann came back at Nordbjaerg. When the latter luffed, Schuemann responded, kept clear and slid around Nordbjaerg to establish a lead that he did not relinquish to the finish. Result: 3-0
to Schuemann.

“It was disappointing to lose 3-0”, said Nordbjaerg, who had had a pretty consistently good performance throughout the event until the finals, “but it is always tough sailing Jochen”. Nordbjaerg recently left the Match Race Center in Copenhagen and is now working on establishing match race centers in other parts of Denmark.

Schuemann, who has won Match Race Berlin on a number of other occasions, but not so far this century, was delighted with his win in the tricky conditions. He has ‘done the double’ this year, also winning the spring match race grade three event in Berlin.

Results:

Overall summary

1st Jochen Schuemann/Nils Frei/Bernard Labro (Germany/Alinghi)
2nd Lars Nordbjaerg/Christian Monberg/Jan Eli Andersen (Denmark)
3rd Karol Jablonski/Tom Baranowski/Dominik Zycki (Poland)
4th Mathieu Richard/Olivier Herledant/Mathieu Renault (France)
5th Markus Wieser/Matti Paschen/Eberhard Magg (Germany)
6th Jordi Calafat/Pieter van Niekerk/Peter van Nieuwenhuyzen (Spain/Alinghi)

Losers at end of first two round robins – undifferentiated results

Stefan Meister (Germany), Andreas Willim (Germany/Fresh17), Jan-Eike
Andresen (Germany/Fresh17), Simon Minoprio (New Zealand), Ian Williams
(UK), Hans-Juergen Swoboda (Germany)

Finals
Jochen Schuemann (Germany/Alinghi) beat Lars Nordbjaerg (Denmark) 3-0

Petit-final
Karol Jablonski (Poland) beat Mathieu Richard (France) 2-0

Semi-finals
Lars Nordbjaerg (Denmark) beat Mathieu Richard (France) 2-0
Jochen Schuemann (Germany/Alinghi) beat Karol Jablonski (Poland) 2-0