(Boltenhagen, Germany)- Next week, the German J/24 teams, their families
and friends are looking forward to sailing and partying with all J/24
sailors in Boltenhagen on the Baltic coast, one of the top sailing areas
in Germany! Boltenhagen’s attractive location in
Mecklenburg-Vorpommerania allows spectator-friendly inshore racing, with
stable winds and free from commercial shipping lanes.From 28th August to 4th September, the fifty-five boats from 14 countries (Argentina, Barbados, Brazil, France, Great Britain, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, Peru, Sweden, USA) will be based in the purpose-built Boltenhagen Marina located within the exclusive ‘Weiße Wiek’ holiday village which offers a modern yet relaxed atmosphere. Racing will be organized by the Norddeutscher Regattaverein, one of Germany’s oldest yacht clubs, that has many years of experience in staging international events such as Kiel week and countless One-Design Championships. The town of Boltenhagen is close to the venue and grew from a fishing village into a picturesque seaside resort in the early 19th century.
The
fleet has great representation across the board from the major J/24
fleets in Europe as well as teams coming from South America, North
America and Far East Asia. The host country is fielding the largest
contingent of boats, with 23 on the starting line. Most of their top
teams are present, including Peer Kock on UK SAILMAKERS GISCHTH &
GLUT, Lars Gibbe’s HANSA PROJEKT, Jan Kahler’s UNITED 5, John Huhn’s
HUNGRIGER WOLF, Frank Schonfeldt’s HENK, Tobias Feuerherdt’s TEAM
ROTOMAN, Manfred Konig’s VITESSE, and Frithjof Schade’s JJONE. The next largest contingent are their friends from across The Channel, the seven boats participating from Great Britain. Leading that contingent is likely to be Ian Southworth’s IL RICCIO, a past J/24 European Champion. They will be joined by Jim Anderson’s BOOMERANG, Andrew Taylor’s hot crew on HITCH-HIKER, Roger Morris’ JOLLY ROGER, David Cooper’s JAWBREAKER and Quinton Hall’s JUJU.
Not surprisingly, the very active J/24 fleet in Italy is sending five boats that include top contenders like Pietro Diamanti’s JAMAICA and Marc Arata’s Italian Navy crew on a “hash tagged” boat called #WEAREINPUGLIA! Amazingly, the Japanese contingent are showing up with four teams that includes Fumiya Kato on LULL & HACHI, Kazuki Kumagai on DABOHAZE, Hiraoki Matsuyama on GYOSYU and Tokuma Takesue on GEKKO.
For the other countries sending between 1 to 3 teams, notably absent is the current J/24 World Champion- Will Welles from Newport, RI. In his place will be two very fast, highly competitive teams- Mike Ingham’s NAUTALYTICS from Rochester, New York and Travis Odenbach’s DR FEELGOOD from North Carolina. Other top contenders should be Sweden’s Per-Hakan Persson on FRONT RUNNER, Peru’s Javier Arribas Harten skippering JJ-ONE, The Netherland’s Dirk Olyslagers on JOOL, the top Hungarian teams- Mike Schmolling on EL NINO and Mate Kakas on ZULU, the top Greek crew- Dimitris Altsiadis on EVNIKI, France’s Francois de Herce on MAJIC, 5-time World Champion Mauricio Santa Cruz from Brazil skippering BRUSCHETTA, and Rodrigo Benedetto’s Argentinean crew on THOMSON REUTERS.
Top
women’s teams vying for the Top Women Skipper include Germany’s
Stephanie Kopcke on VEGA RAGAZZA and Corina Thiermann’s AVALANCHA;
Sophie Pearson’s British crew on JELI from Parkstone YC; and Liselotte
Sjoberg’s Swedish team on FOR FUN BLUE.For you armchair sailors and tacticians, you can follow the fleet with TracTrac. Every boat will sail the races with a GPS-tracker on board so spectators worldwide can follow the racing live as soon as the starting gun fires! Also, the competitors will be able to analyze afterwards where they made gains or losses. All features like replay, position lists at mark roundings and boat-to-boat comparisons will be online. See the live-tracking here. For more J/24 World Championship sailing information
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