Schuemann with a race to spare

Jon Amtrup reports from Sydney on the 5.5m Worlds

With one race to go in Sydney Jochen Schuemann headed for the crane. He had the Gold Medal in the 5.5mR World Championships in the bag and saw no reason to sail the last race where it was as important to pick the right shifts as it was to avoid all the ferries.

"Even if you might think is where an easy win, it was not," said Jochen Schuemann at the prizegiving in the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron.

But it most certainly looked easy when the Alinghi Sports Manager and Strategist managed to win six of the ten races here on Sydney Harbour. Schuemann, who won the 5.5 Metre World Championship when it was held in Flensburg, Germany in 2001 was racing with Swiss sailor Ronald Pieper, who won this event in 1987 in Hankø, Norway and the Scandinavian Gold Cup in 1988, and Alinghi Trimmer Pieter Van Niekerk on board Pieper's Artemis XII. Aside from his wins Schuemann finished second in two race and third in one of this nine race regatta.

During the regtta the usual northeasterlies that dominate Sydney Harbour this time of summer never kicked in, and this left the 27 boats sailing with very shifty conditions for the duration of the series. But the last day was definitely the most challenging. The wind made 40 degree shifts in just a fraction of a second, and it required a good weather nose too avoid the wind holes and stay in the pressure areas around the buoys.

Even more challenging was all the local ferries that kept full speed ahead right through the race course. It's one thing too miss a wind shift, but a whole different story to end up under a ferry. At times there were some desperate manoeuvres and a lot of horn blowing from the ferry skippers. Three 5.5mRs where even protested by the regatta committee on Monday for not giving room to the ferries, but all the protests where dropped after the hearings.

Addam3, skippered by 70-year-old Finn Johan Gullichsen , got his revenge in the Worlds after he had lost the Scandinavian Gold Cup to Swiss sailor Bruno Marazzi in Ali-Baba. Ali-Baba had won the Gold Cup with three straight wins, but in the Worlds she didn’t show the same consistency and got six points less than Gullichsen who took second..

The Italian boat Carabella, skippered by Alfredo Delli, won the Classic Division, and in the Evolution Division it was Australia's own Robert Fielding in Goddam that took the top position.

Top five final standings:
1. Pieper / Schuemann, SUI, 10 points
2. Johan Gullichen, FIN, 22 points
3. Bruno Marazzi, SUI, 28 points
4. Patrick de la Chenais, SUI, 32 points
5. Hans Nadorp, FIN, 33 points