Andy Rice
DINGHIES
B
ritish sailors don’t go to Kiel
Week. It’s always chucking
it down with torrential rain
and it’s woolly hat weather.
Not this year though. With
hot, windy days – air temperature in
excess of 30 degrees and breeze in the
teens – this year’s event was Kielifornia!
e last time this happened was
nine years ago. But 2019 was the
125th edition of the regatta, and the
wind and the sunshine decided to
celebrate this impressive anniversary.
ere is nothing else quite like it in
the annual calendar. Kiel Week claims
to be the biggest sailing regatta in the
world and on many measures it surely
must live up to that boast. A nine-day
event, the rst half of the regatta focuses
on the international classes (the non-
OIympic eets) and is mostly about
keen amateur sailors competing against
each other. e second half shis its
gaze to the Olympic events. Each year
Kieler Woche – as the Germans call
it – hosts more than 4,000 sailors from
60 nations, competing in more than
1,900 sailing boats. You should nd out
if your class is eligible and if it is, come
along and give it a go at least once in
your life. e camp site is right next to
the boat park so if you want to do it on
the cheap, Kiel Week is very doable.
Contrary to other years there was
quite a representation of Brits present
in Kiel, including the Musto Ski
eet who were cramming in some
nal big-regatta practice before the
World Championships in Holland in
early July. Past 49er world medallist
Rick Peacock has been squeezing in
some training around his day job
as a coach for the Dutch Olympic
squad and won the Mustos in Kiel.
Brits Penny and Russ Clark have been
on a tour of Europe in their 505 and are
becoming world class at a speed that
has made their overseas opponents sit
up and take notice. Wolfgang Hunger
is a 505 legend, a ve-times world
champion who has dedicated himself to
the Five-Oh with the intensity that won
him two 470 World Championships andThe world’s biggest sailing regatta, no more than a day’s drive away for
UK sailors, Kiel Week oers great racing for amateurs and proscommentary for the Olympic classes.
While Kiel struggles for air time in
this busy season – many Olympic
hopefuls are focused on their class
championships – there was good
strength in depth in the Nacra 17,
49erFX and the 49er in particular.
Dylan Fletcher and Stu Bithell were
the only top-tier 49er crew not present
in Germany, and the 82-boat eet was
pretty much a world championship
in terms of quality. In the Hawaiian-
hot windy weather in qualifying, New
Zealand’s Pete Burling and Blair Tuke
took up the early running, but when
the conditions turned shiy and light,
the reigning Olympic champions
looked as mortal as anyone.
So close was the racing by the end of
the week that nine of the 10 teams in
the Medal Race could have won gold.
Recently elevated to number one in
the world rankings, Brits James Peters
and Fynn Sterritt sailed a blinder of a
Medal Race to get bronze, a real boost
to their campaign. e Kiwis won – but
not those famous ones. e champions
in Kiel were Logan Dunning Beck and
Oscar Gunn who are part of a young
squad that trains like crazy in New
Zealand and is regularly threatening the
dominance of Burling and Tuke. Bear
in mind that in the intervening years
since Rio 2016, the Olympic champions
have won the America’s Cup and both
very nearly won the Volvo Ocean Race
in that stunning nale sailing into e
Hague last summer, so Burling and
Tuke could be excused for not being
quite back to their best yet. at said,
the returning legends have already
won the European Championships in
Weymouth earlier this summer (see
p52) and only just missed out on a
medal in Kiel where they were h.
Dunning Beck and the other young
Kiwis have that double-edged sword of
training with the world’s best 49er team
while knowing it’s that same team that
stands in their way of the Games – a
feeling familiar to any British Finn sailor
of the past decade or more, unless your
name is Ben Ainslie or Giles Scott.Musto Ski sailor
Andy Rice has
unparalleled
knowledge of
the dinghy sailing
scene, from
grassroots to
Olympic levelsaw him represent Germany at three
Olympic Games in 1984, 1988 and 1992.
Sailing with his old friend Holger
Jess, Hunger was hungry for another
win at Kiel Week. He’d already won the
regatta 21 times but he’d been through
a lean period for six years. Hunger did
indeed win his 22nd title, but he was
pushed hard by the ever-improving
Clarks who nished second, in front
of 1988 Flying Dutchman Olympic
champion, Jørgen Bojsen-Møller from
Denmark, crewed by his brother Jacob.
Just behind the Bojsen-Møllers
were two top Brit teams: Roger
Gilbert/Ben McGrane and Tom
Gillard/Geo Edwards, with the
latter crew nishing particularly
strongly, winning two of the last three
races. While the 505 has struggled
for numbers in the UK, it seems to
be going very well internationally.
Putting aside the Olympic classes,
the Optimist and the International
Moth, the quality of competition in
the 505 is about as hot as it gets.
I was in Kiel to do live raceAbove
505 legends
Hunger and Jess
at Kiel WeekHunger had already won the
regatta 21 times but had been
through a lean period for six
years...
August 2019 Yachts & Yachting 19PHOTO: SASCHA KLAHN