128th Kiel Week: Summer doldrums test Olympic sailors: Detention on the fjord: 470 mixed duos in stress test

After a marathon of lull sailing on Saturday, 23 German boats and boards have qualified for the Olympic finals of the 128th Kiel Week. The women's skiff sailors in the 49er FX had to sit in until the evening because the light summer winds repeatedly caused interruptions. The 470 mixed crews were the most intensively challenged. They spent more than eight hours in two stages on the water until they had completed two races in the light breeze. For the windsurfers in the men's and women's iQFoil and the foiling Nacra 17 mixed duos, the races on the final day of the world's largest sailing series were cancelled completely.

The remarkably high number of 23 DSV finalists can be explained by the fact that some of the fields in the Olympic disciplines in Kiel are small and predominantly national. Others, however, such as the fast catamaran Nacra 17, have even attracted all the Olympic medallists from Japan to the fjord. The German 470 mixed duos, newly formed for the 2024 Olympics, made a strikingly strong showing in their international field during the second half of Kiel Week. Malte and Anastasiya Winkel (Schweriner Yacht-Club/Norddeutscher Regatta Verein), Luise Wanser/Philipp Autenrieth (NRV/Bayerischer Yacht-Club) and Simon Diesch/Anna Markfort (Württembergischer Yacht-Club/Verein Seglerhaus am Wannsee) are the top three in this order for the German Sailing Team, each still in with a chance of winning Kieler Woche. Anastasiya Winkel was delighted with her team's run to the top: "Our day today. We simply worked well together. Malte got off to a good start, I really saw the pressure. And when we were in front, we defended it cleanly."

"It's going to be a battle. We're going full attack"

Tim Fischer and Fabian Graf (Norddeutscher Regatta Verein/Verein Seglerhaus am Wannsee) finished ninth overall in the 49er in Sunday's final. After a long break from their studies, the duo are making their way back to the international top. In view of the narrow points gap - places one to ten in the 49er are separated by just 15 points before the double scoring decision - Tim Fischer is expecting a tough battle: "It's going to be a battle. We're going full attack." The leading Brits James Peters and Fynn Sterritt, who like the Germans have their sights set on the 2024 Olympics, left the hosts with a compliment before the decision. Sterritt said: "We like Kiel Week. It's a great mix of sailing and partying." In the Ilca 6, Julia Büsselberg from Berlin dropped back to seventh place before the final. In the Ilca 7, Nik Aaron Willim from Schleswig lost an even better position before the medal race due to a black flag early start, as did other top starters. A protest lodged against this was not upheld. Germany's best will start the men's and women's iQFoil finals as front runners: Sebastian Kördel and Lena Erdil lead their fleets ahead of the decision. Given the sparse international field of new Olympians, this is not a huge surprise. Nevertheless, Kördel's nine victories in nine races still need to be equalled.

The medal finals start on Sunday at 11am

The medal finals of Kiel Week start on Sunday at 11am. However, the wind prospects remain "difficult" according to the organisers the evening before. Only a handful of knots of wind are forecast. If the final races cannot be sailed, the front runners from Saturday evening will be crowned Kiel Week winners. Among them are four German starters.

Starting signal for the Silver Ribbon

The sea sailors on the Stollergrund also had to contend with the light breeze on Saturday. Just in time for the start of the Silver Ribbon, the wind had temporarily stopped working for the day: The yachts bobbed around on the fjord as if on a shimmering silver cloth. In order to realise a regular start at all, the race officer crew waited half an hour, then found a wind field for 20 minutes, in which they sent the 22 boats and their crews onto the course. The breeze held out until the first mark, then collapsed again. But finally it pushed the fleet towards Denmark. In the starry and warm night, they travelled at a leisurely pace in the direction of the Great Belt past Langeland. "It paid off to choose an anti-clockwise course," said race director Ralf Paulsen. On Saturday morning, the race committee had set up at the eastern entrance to Svendborg Sund on the island of Thurø. They allowed the large yachts to pass to complete the full 116 nautical mile course, while Ralf Paulsen's team took the group of small boats to the finish line at the course mark about halfway through the course. However, the results will not be known until Sunday morning.

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