They are back: Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel took two days to get going at the season opener before Miami. Four months almost without training had made itself felt more clearly than hoped in the first few days. On Thursday, however, it seemed as if the Berliners had had enough of toiling in midfield after another shaky start with 17th and eighth place. With two consecutive victories on the day, they took the lead in the standings ahead of the British duo of Dylan Fletcher-Scott/Stuart Bithell and the Croatian world champions Sime and Mihovil Fantela.
"But it wasn't as easy today as it looked in the end," reported Erik Heil. "The first race of the day in particular was one of the sickest we've ever experienced. With various wind systems on the course, you really didn't know where to sail in the end. Sometimes you stood and waited, then it went on. Completely crazy." With two excellent starts in line with the instructions of national coach Marc Pickel, who had forecast a clockwise wind from the airport, the two race wins were then achieved in somewhat more constant winds. "We had set ourselves the goal of a top eight result before the regatta in view of the lack of training days. That's realistic, because we still fluctuate quite a lot. But of course a day like today gives you a good feeling, even if our condition is not yet where it should be and we are now pretty tired after four races," said Heil.
The crew from the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein, which has been sailing the 49er for ten years and is therefore very experienced, is now starting the second half of the regatta with a lead of almost seven points. The 29-year-old helmsman Heil and his equally old coxswain Plößel, who train with the leading German 49er teams under the direction of Marc Pickel, have double German support in the top ten. Jakob Meggendorfer and Andreas Spranger from the Bayerischer Yacht-Club are in fifth place at the halfway point of the World Cup regatta in Biscayne Bay. Justus Schmidt and Max Boehme from Kiel are right behind them in sixth place. World Championship bronze medallists Tim Fischer and Fabian Graf had initially dropped back to 13th place. However, they too are only five points off the top ten ahead of the last four races before the skiff medal race on Saturday. The overall impression of the German 49er fleet after three days: strong! This also applied to the first victory of the day on Thursday morning, sailed by Finn helmsman Max Kohlhoff. The man from Kiel was able to work his way up to 16th place with subsequent 15th and 13th places, while his team-mate Phillip Kasüske dropped back to 19th place.
Driven onto a reef in the Nacra 17!
After a somewhat shaky start, Paul Kohlhoff and Alica Stuhlemmer also made a good impression recently. Then the duo were brought to a brutal halt on Thursday. "We hit a reef - in the middle of the course!" said Paul Kohlhoff, who could hardly believe it himself. The centreboard of the Nacra 17 was split in two. The Kiel team lost a total of two races as a result of the crash. They rushed to get a replacement centreboard and countered with another fourth place in the fourth race of the day. Unlike offshore sailors with their technical and electronic equipment, Olympic sailors have little chance of recognising and avoiding underwater reefs, which should never be on their courses. In the evening, the crew from the Kieler Yacht-Club fought with a request to the jury for compensation for the extraordinary mishap. Without compensation, they were initially in 16th place, while the second German Nacra 17 crew, Johannes Polgar and Carolina Werner, were in twelfth place after a total of nine races.
Fast women in the 49erFX and the 470
665 sailors from 62 nations are competing for 45 medals at the Hempel World Cup Series Miami 2019. The athletes and the boats of the German Sailing Team are also positioning themselves for this. Alongside the skiff crews, the 470 women have done best so far: Fabienne Oster and Anastasiya Winkel from the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein were in third place after four races, while Frederike Loewe and Anna Markfort from the Seglerhaus am Wannsee club were in fifth place. The 49erFX title defenders Vicky Jurczok and Anika Lorenz also sailed a very good series, but after convincing fourth and second places at the end of the day on Thursday, they lost what could have been a good lead with an early start. However, the Berliners are back in contention on Friday in third place overall.
Black day for the laser sailors
Thursday was a black day for the German Laser sailors, with both leader Philipp Buhl and up-and-comer Nik Aaron Willim struggling. Philipp Buhl started the day well in seventh place, but then lost almost 15 boats in the second race on the second downwind leg alone because he had chosen the wrong side of the course, finishing in 35th place. After 15th place in the third race of the day, the Sonthofen native initially dropped back to 15th place. The World Championship bronze medallist will have to hurry in the final sprint if he still wants to reach the medal final. However, it would not be the first time that he has responded to a setback with a comeback. Even the day's winner Nik Aaron Willim, who had been so happy the day before, no longer found himself in his fine 13th place at the end of day three, but in 42nd place after finishing 50th, 40th and 40th. In the Laser Radial, Laura Bo Voss was in 33rd place after five races.
Addendum, Friday, 1 o'clock: The application for compensation by the Nacra 17 crew Paul Kohlhoff and Alica Stuhlemmer has been rejected. It was confirmed that the reef was on the course, meaning that there was actually not enough draught. On the other hand, however, as Paul Kohlhoff reported when the decision was announced, according to the jury, the race officer had set the course correctly in accordance with official guidelines. The specifications in turn were apparently based on incorrect information. As the race committee could not be proven to have made a mistake, the injured parties must now chalk up their encounter with the reef and the consequences to "bad luck". Let's hope that there will be no more courses with reef danger off Miami from Friday onwards.
Here to see the current interim results, which may have changed slightly overnight due to further upcoming protests and the time difference.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
