Monday, November 7, 2016

Deutscher Touring YC Triumphant in German Sailing League Finale

J/70s sailing German Bundesliga on Alster Lake in Hamburg, Germany (Hamburg, Germany)- The final outcome of the 2016 German Sailing League was not without its drama.  The favorites for the regatta were the Deutscher Touring YC, but they faltered on the 2nd and 3rd day of the regatta.  Nevertheless, in the end the Tutzinger team held on by a thread to win the title for the second time- crowned as champions with the Robbe & Berking Trophy!

"It is a great relief and we are very happy about the title and the repeat win. Yesterday and today did not work well for us, so we had to fight all the more today. The field is strong and the conditions on the Alster were partly difficult. Today, we will be celebrating properly with the whole team," said Patrick Follmann.  Sailing with him were the crew of Steuermann Julian Stückl, Jonas Vogt and Luis Tarabochia.

J/70 German Sailing League winnersIn the last regatta of the year, the DTYC finished in tenth place!  In fact, they nearly blew their enormous lead they had going into the finale on the beautiful Alster Lake in Hamburg's gorgeous park-like setting.  The team was so out of sync, they did not even qualify for the Final Six finale on Sunday!

The victory in Hamburg went to Verein Seglerhaus am Wannsee, the team consisted of Malte Kamrath, Tim Elsner, Jens Steinborn and Julian Bergemann.  Taking second for the weekend was the Düsseldorf Yacht Club with crew of Julian Stuckl, Patrick Follmann, Jonas Vogt, and Luis Tarabochia.  Finally, rounding out the top three was Segel-und Motorboot Club Uberlingen with the team of Tino Mittlemeier, Sven Hebberger, Frederik Schaal, and Christian Zittlau.

J/70s sailing Hamburg, GermanyAs a result of the Hamburg finale, DTYC won the six regatta series with a total of 21 pts, just two points clear of VSaW.  The big jump came for the balance of the top five.  Leaping into the bronze position on the podium was Bayerischer YC with 38 pts, sneaking past Lindauer Segler-club by one point.  LSC had a strong start for the overall title, posting a 3-4-2-2 and were easily in contention, sitting just one point back from DTYC.  However, two disastrous results in Kiel (14th) and Hamburg (14th) dropped them off a cliff into fourth place.

Similarly, the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein rode a crazy roller-coaster scoreline all season, winning the first regatta in Starnberg, then disappearing off the map in Konstanz (12th) and Travemunde (16th), then climbing back into a decent finish with a 2-4 in the last two events.  It was a drama-filled event for the top five since where you placed determined the entire outcome for the season.  While the winners were dancing and showering in champagne, the rest of the top five were swimming in beer, thankful, for the most part, for their good fortunes!  Sailing photo credits- Lars Wehrmann  Follow the German Sailing League on Facebook  For more J/70 German Sailing League information