50th Tempest World Championship: World Championship on Lake Tegernsee: "Wosamma"? We'll be first!

Lovingly organised by the Tegernsee Yacht Club and held in just two acts on the picture-book Tegernsee sailing area: the 50th anniversary edition of the Tempest World Championship came to an end on Friday with a commanding victory for the top favourites: Helmsman Markus Wieser joins the historically long list of Tempest World Champions for the first time, Tegernsee turbo Thomas Auracher for the second time. The 49-year-old foresailor had already won the Tempest World Championship once in 1993 with his then helmsman Vincent Hoesch off Warnemünde.

The Berlin race officer Robert Niemczewski from the Seglerhaus am Wannsee club and his team from the host yacht club on Lake Tegernsee did not have it easy every day of these World Championships. The World Championships had started with two days of lulls in a row. Just as people were beginning to worry whether the minimum of four races required for an official World Championship ranking could even be organised during this week in August, the 43 teams were able to complete their first two light wind races on Wednesday. Unlucky were those who were ahead on the first attempt at the finish cross and had to witness how the race committee had to abandon the race on the way to the finish due to the fickle winds. First and foremost Kicker Schäfer and Andreas Achterberg, who had led the field.

Another curious, but not entirely unusual scenario for the Tegernsee area arose on the following day, when the race committee allowed the Tempest fleet to set sail at 6 a.m. on Thursday morning. The reward for the effort: three clean races in front of a glorious sunrise and lush green mountain backdrop in beautiful winds. After these first five races, the top favourites Markus Wieser and Thomas Auracher had more than clearly demonstrated their hunger for the title and were already in a commanding lead with an impressive series (1-2-2-1-3). The helmsman from the Bavarian Yacht Club and his Tegernsee foresailor were in a correspondingly good mood when they set off on Friday in an attempt to complete further races.

However, the shifting winds once again thwarted round six. Werner Fritz and Herbert Kujan, who were in second place and only four points behind Wieser/Auracher (6 points), would have liked to attack again, but after completing the short World Championship programme with a total of only five races, they were also delighted to take World Championship silver ahead of Stefan Schollmayer and Markus Mühlbauer (16 points). Mario Suter and Andreas Hochuli (19 points) were the best Swiss sailors in fourth place ahead of the beaten defending champions Christian Spranger and Christopher Kopp (21 points) in fifth place. Race director Robert Niemczewski's tongue-in-cheek conclusion at the end of the five-day series, which could only be sailed on two days: "An interesting lake..."

Markus Wieser and Thomas Auracher were celebrated in the evening at the Tegernsee Yacht Club. Helmsman Wieser said: "We are really delighted! Of course we wanted to do well here with the new boat, but if someone had offered me the runner-up spot before the start of the World Championships, I would have taken it." On the water, he climbed another place to the top of the podium. Wieser also received the award for best "newcomer" in the class - who else but the world champion, who, as a new Tempest sailor, had a Mader boat built especially for the title fights and enthusiastically promoted the class: "The Tempest is completely underrated. The boat is a lot of fun to sail and I can well imagine that the class will become more popular again in the future."

Ulrike Schümann, fourth at the 2008 Olympics in the Yngling, sailed to 18th place in her Tempest debut - making her the best helmswoman at this World Championship. With fourth place in the unfinished test race and third place in the first World Championship race, which was cancelled shortly before the finish, Schümann knew how to impress the Tempest World Championship fleet at the start despite a break of several years from racing with her cox Tim Kröger. However, after less fortunate starts and a minor crash with a British crew, the duo from the Seglerhaus am Wannsee club and the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein finished the series well in the top half. Schümann's conclusion was correspondingly positive: "It was a lot of fun sailing this pretty fast Tempest Class Association boat," said Schümann, who had to undergo cruciate ligament surgery just four months ago and was wearing a leg brace at the tiller. "The Tempest is a super cool boat. So we'd love to take part again. But then preferably without injury."

Here to see the final results of the Tempest World Championship.