BYC Tops J/70 SAILING Champions League 3rd Qualifier

(St Petersburg, Russia)- Bayerischer Yacht-Club from Germany won the third and final Qualifier of the SAILING Champions League 2019. They won by 4 points from another German team- Wassersport-Verein Hemelingen. Union Yacht Club Wolfgangsee from Austria finished third. Of the twenty teams competing, the top six qualified for a place at the Finale in St. Moritz next month. They are:

• Bayerischer Yacht-Club (Germany)
• Wassersport-Verein Hemelingen (Germany)
• Union Yacht Club Wolfgangsee (Austria)
• PIRogovo (Russia)
• Regattaclub Oberhofen (Switzerland)
• St. Petersburg Yacht Club (Russia)

The event was frustrated by no racing on day one, due to excessively strong winds. This was followed by two days of very light airs, which meant only five flights of racing could be completed before the final day. The wind for the last day was also light, but consistent, and enough for another three flights, making every result count more than usual.

Skipper Julian Autenrieth from the winning Bayerischer Yacht-Club team commented, “The location in St. Petersburg is great here in the middle of the city. But, the conditions were really tricky, with the low winds and the current. You always had to be able to stay calm. What we did well throughout were the starts with the current. This meant that we were often starting off among the top three, which made the races easier for us.”

On Friday, there was a Gala Dinner under the theme of “Connecting Through Sport”, which took place alongside five international teams from the Nord Stream Race who had just completed the 1,000 mile offshore race along the length of the Baltic Sea.

Mans Lundberg from Finland was a sailor who competed in both the offshore Nord Stream Race and then went straight into the short-course J/70 sportsboat racing in the SAILING Champions League on the Neva River. “As I sailed in Nord Stream Race and SAILING Champions League, I knew a lot of the people at the Gala Dinner. It was very exciting connecting the sailors between both events. We were at the same table as the guys from Lithuania, and we talked a lot with them. It was a really nice event,” said Lundberg.

The Final of the SAILING Champions League will take place from 15 to 18 August in St. Moritz, Switzerland, high up in the Swiss Alps.

Livestream and results by SAP
The final two days of racing on Saturday and Sunday will be live broadcasted by SAP, with expert commentators providing blow-by-blow analysis of the racing, aided by the detail provided by SAP Sailing Analytics. The SAP Sailing Analytics provide 24/7 additional statistics and data for sailors, fans, spectators and media like GPS tracking, real-time analysis, live leaderboard combined with 2D visualization. You find all results on sapsailing.com!  Sailing Photo credits: SCL/Anya Semeniouk  For more SAILING Champions League information