Great Racing in Bundesliga Between German Clubs
(Travemunde, Germany)- The J/70 Bundesliga yacht club participants were
looking forward to sailing on Travemunde's famous bay on the Baltic Sea;
renown for the sea-breeze that often fills in the afternoon at 10-15
kts from the northeasterly quadrants- often oscillating from 40 to 75
degrees.The second regatta of the Bundesliga took place in front of Lübeck, sailing in a "stadium-style" racing right along the Travemunde waterfront. The regatta organizers did a fabulous job of running thirty races for three flights over the two days for the eighteen teams that were competing. The weather Gods cooperated, offering up sunny days with nice sea-breezes every afternoon-- that's what the chamber of commerce promised, right!?
Demonstrating how close the competition was for all the teams, the top three was determined on a three-way tie-breaker with 25 pts total each. Winning the regatta with most firsts was the Bayerischer YC, second was the North German Regatta Association and third was YC Berlin Grunau.
"The
leading clubs are all sailing on the same level. Everybody has won
races and sometimes have also landed back in the field," says Walter
Roth sailing with Yacht Club Berlin Grunau. And, he adds that "having
short, fast consecutive races means bad ones are quickly forgotten! The
BYC team with skipper Christian Schäfer and crew John Kaske, Philip
Hibler and Walter Roth have been improving constantly. Their victory in
Travemünde means we now move into second place in the overall
Bundesliga series!"The YC Berlin Grunau continues to lead the Bundesliga series as a result of their third place finish in Travemunde. "For us, everything went as planned. We defended our championship lead and want to continue our good performance in the next regatta in Hamburg," said the team manager of YCBG.
The second place team in Travemünde, the North German Regatta Association, underlined their ambitions in the Bundesliga. "We're used to match race sailing, but we quickly adapt to these exciting new boats- the J/70s. This has definitely helped us on the first day of racing," explains Florian Weser. He generally match races with his teammates Klaas Höpcke and Niklas Meyerinck. "The NRV team is now ranked third in the Bundesliga series and we intend to get better!" added helmsman Johannes Polgar.
As one of the primary sponsors of the Bundesliga series sailed on J/70s, SAP's Sail-TV has been providing both locally live TV broadcasts as well as live internet broadcasts on-line. The popularity of the event not only throughout Germany, but across Europe, has been increasing dramatically! Watch for other versions of this J/70 circuit in other European countries next year! Sailing Photo credits- Lars Wehrmann For more J/70 Bundesliga sailing information For more Travemunde Woche sailing information
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