To Riga

An update from the Nord/LB Baltic Sprint Cup

“Ladybird” left home, “Anita” will be back soon

The chase is on for the pack to catch up with the overall leader in the NORD/LB Baltic Sprint Cup, the X-442 Emil Reiseschwein from Buxtehude, Germany. In perfect weather conditions the start of leg 3 today took the fleet of 45 yachts out of the Bay of Tallinn heading for Riga, the capital city of Latvia.

Right from the start two boats from Hamburg, Bavaria 42 Match Pippifax owned by Gunter Persiehl and J/109 Brinkmann & Partner skippered by Hans-Jürgen Rieckhoff, sailed in front in their classes B and C. Class A was led by Kiel-based Outsider (Tilmar
Hansen). The leg, split in two parts of 65 and 88 nautical miles, will see the boats motoring through the Väinameri channel between the islands, for safety reasons. The first finishers are expected to reach Riga in the afternoon on Saturday.

Only half an hour in the race a big yellow bubble brought a lot of trouble especially for the crew of Beast. While rounding this windward mark, the Sun Fast 37 caught the ground line of the inflatable buoy and towed it away. It took the German skipper Carsten Kneuer and his crew a lot of time to free themselves.

Positions were changing a lot. Brinkmann & Partner was in front as the fleet passed the Paljassaare mark at the entrance of Tallinn Bay. “We will attack this time, we want the
lead”, skipper Hans-Jürgen Rieckhoff had said in a late midnight briefing to his crew, after analysing the weather. Beginning with a moderate breeze the forecast shows a change in the weather with possible thunderstorms and gusts up to 45 knots on Saturday evening.

The predicted strong headwinds made Achim Griese, helmsmen on Pippifax very happy. “That’s wonderful, we are ready”, said the Olympic silver medallist from 1984, looking back at the marina of Tallinn, where 1980 the Olympic sailing games had taken place - but on that occasion without the western nations due to a boycott. “The atmosphere has totally changed, everything is relaxed now, not comparable to the Soviet Union times”, he remarked.

Two yachts from the Baltic States are now sailing in the NORD/LB Baltic Sprint Cup fleet. Ladybird from Pärnu, Estonia, left home waters today and new entry Anita, sailed by skipper Arnis Remees will approach his hometown Riga as part of this leg. Anita, a 13.60 metre IOR racer from 1996 is flying the Latvian flag and sails within the wildcard rule allowing boats that cannot sail the whole regatta to start in the legs from and to their registered home ports.

“We are happy to sail this race to Riga, even if we do not think we will have a chance against the modern yachts”, said Remees.

On board Ladybird skipper Erki Melts had to solve some crew problems early in the morning because some of his Estonian sailors had visited home and work offices during the stay in Tallinn and did not return in time. “But the stopover in Tallinn was great. We have had a party for two days. I think everyone enjoyed it here“, said Aap Koha, boat manager from the Ladybird crew, speaking for all of the 400 sailors in the race.

Overall Results after two out of seven legs:
1. Emil Reiseschwein (Stefan Hummelt/ Buxtehude, Germany) 6 points;
2.Pippifax (Gunter Persiehl/Hamburg, Germany) 13; 3. Brinkmann&Partner
(Frank Sothmann/Hamburg, Germany) 15: 4. Ladybird (Erki Melts/Pärnu,
Estonia)
16; 5.Inschallah (Volker Andreae/Hamburg, Germany) 18; 6. Anne Bonny
(Hans-Jürgen Färber/Heiligenstedten, Germany) 18 points.