Out to sea

Andreas Kling reports on the departure of the offshore race at Rolex Baltic Week

Water 20, air 25deg C with a steady easterly of four to five knots dotting white caps on the deep blue waters of the Baltic Sea.

Many thousand of sunbathers lined the beaches all along the way out to the race courses. Even St. Tropez couldn't have been any better for offshore sailing than Neustadt in Holstein at the start of the first Rolex Baltic Week this afternoon (7 August).
When the 42 crews competing for the International German Championships (Internationale Deutsche Meisterschaft, IDM) got ready to start, six yachts were already on their way in the first race of the Swan regatta. About 30 more races in five different regattas are yet to be sailed from Neustadt's ancora Marina until next Sunday (15 August).

The exact length of course 9 is 132.1 nautical miles, laid out for the IDM by race director Andreas Reinke of Norddeutscher Regatta Verein. From Neustadt, the fleet has to tack their way east to Wismar, then out to mark 3 of the Luebeck-Gedser seaway and back southeast to Rostock, into Fehmarn Sound, back to the seaway, once again to Wismar and finally across the finish line off Neustadt.

"It is an interesting and demanding course with many tacks and downwind parts", said Thomas Jungblut just before taking off. The sailmaker from Hamburg is skipper on L+M Hispaniola owned by Horst Mann from Kiel. She is the top candidate in the premium class IMS 1. "But we have to be on our guard against four or five strong competitors," said Jungblut, "I am sure they will be on our heels in the long-distance race."

One of them is, of course, the Rodman 42 Hanseatic Lloyd of Christian Plump from Bremen. Helmsman Albert Schweizer, also a sailmaker: "The race will be decided during the night and in the early morning. The forecast is that the wind will be going down, turn to the right and then switch back northeast or even north." Right then, they will need all the energy and weight hiking on the windward side, and maybe dark German rye bread will be handed out to a tired crew. "We have just enjoyed a beautiful spaghetti meal and are now looking forward to coffee and cake", said Jungblut, doing his best not to think about the up-coming tiring 24 hours.

The IMX 40 Sixty 4 is now seen as one of the title candidates, as owner Alv Gundlach from Rendsburg hired the Danish professional Morten Henriksen as helmsman and tactician. Right from the start, it became clear that the match race coach and former fifth in the world ranking knows what he is doing. Sixty 4 made the best start and was among the bigger boats at the front when leaving Neustadt Bay. The IMX 45 Alice of Volker Kriegel from Kiel, another line honours candidate, had set a too big a foresail (no 1 Genoa 1, so she stayed below her potential with a flapping mainsail in the building breeze.

In IMS 2 class, matters were completely different. Lollipop of Jan Hinrichs from Berlin made a solid start and found her way to the front. Westwind of Peter Sueselbeck from Oberhausen seemed to hide at the back at the start, but managed to get to the front of the fleet of 12 yachts.

When the IMS 3/4 group started an hour ahead of the biggest yachts at 4 p.m., the wind was already up, gusting to force 5.

The IDM boats are expected to finish on Sunday afternoon. The time limit for the smallest boats expires at 1800. "We hope to have them all across the finish line in time. If necessary, we will even shorten the course", promised Reinke.

On Saturday evening at 6.11pm, his Swan regatta colleague Coord Mueller saw the first boat finish with the Swan 56 Chrila by Claus Bressler (Hamburg). At 6.25pm, Babs followed, a Swan chartered by the ex-president of Hamburg Soccer Club, Ronny Wulff. At 7pm, four yachts were still at sea.