Frank Schönfeldt? You know him! As a sailmaker. As head clown. As a singer. As an always cheerful and dedicated youth coach. As an eternally young sailing enthusiast and a successful regatta sailor. He is known as the winner of Kieler Woche and the most consistent participant in the YACHT Championship of Champions, which has hardly ever taken place without him for two decades.
The Hamburg native has usually triumphed at the Kieler Woche in the Piraten. Now he is competing for the third time with a J24. And is once again in the lead. However, according to Schönfeldt, this is not down to him, but "70 per cent thanks to my son Till". The 20-year-old tells his father about every gust and every stroke. "He knows exactly where to go," says Schönfeldt, "you can tell that he had a fantastic education at the Mühlenberger Segel-Club and was always coached by very good trainers afterwards." In the Schönfeldt tandem, the father can concentrate on the fast steering, while the son is responsible for the strategy - an apparently successful division of labour. Only Kai Mares' team from the BSC can compete with the family crew, which includes Finn Möller, Thorsten Sperl and Nick Feuerstein in addition to the Schönfeldt duo, and is level on points with the MSC team in second place.
At the same time, Wolfgang Hunger continued his pursuit of his own Kieler Woche record unabated. With his co-skipper Julien Kleiner in the 505, the 19-time Kieler Woche winner already had an almost unassailable lead at half-time. His worst result, apart from his victories on the day, was a second place. European champion Meike Schomäker and Holger Jess improved to ninth place. Olympic starter Tobias Schadewaldt from Kiel, who only won Kiel Week in the 49er Olympic class on Wednesday and has been showing since Thursday in the 505er that a good sailor can also be successful in different disciplines, earned respect. Halfway through the second international part of Kieler Woche, Schadewaldt surprised the 505 establishment with Martin Schöler in the boat and fourth place.
Philipp Buhl and his co-skipper Adalbert Netzer also confirmed the theory that changing classes tends to broaden horizons and that goodness definitely travels with you. Buhl celebrated his first Kiel Week victory in the Laser on Wednesday, beating Olympic starter Simon Grotelüschen in a thrilling duel. In the Flying Dutchman, the sports soldier from Sonthofen is still in second place after the second day, within striking distance of the Hungarian leaders.
The Contender sailors are in a tight race. World champion Jan von der Bank had to let a few feathers fly and slipped back to third place after six races. Ahead of the feisty thriller writer are long-time rival Andrea Bonezzi from Italy and leader Sören Dulong Andreasen from Denmark.
In glorious summer sailing weather, the big boats battled it out for the Silver Ribbon on Friday. In the ORC I class, Jochen Schümann's professional team on "All4One" won - this was no longer a surprise after the smooth passage at the Kiel Cup Regatta - ahead of Sven Wackerhagen's Kiel Knierim 49 "Desna" and the Swiss XP 44 "Rockabella". In ORC II, the Hanse 400 "Asia de Cuba" of Felix Hauß took the lead ahead of Patrik Forsgren's Swedish First 36.7 "Team Arken Zoo" and the Kiel Bavaria 38 Match "Lutzifer" of Martin Lutz. In ORC III/IV, Knut Freudenberg's First 36.7 "semi-dry" made the competition wet. Andreas Wulfe's X-362 Sport " came second ahead of Thomas Jung's Comfortina 35 "Longo Mai".
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
