First at the Middelfart gate in Denmark and first to the finish line: Michael Berghorn and his crew on the "Halbtrocken 4.5" secured the line honours at the Blueribbonrace 2020 with aplomb. Michael Berghorn received the helmsman's prize and the team the Carl Grage Memorial Prize from 1956. No boat had completed the highly popular course around Funen faster this weekend: Starting at 10.20 am on Friday and finishing at 1.15 pm on Saturday after almost exactly 27 hours, the team could not be caught by any competitor. The fact that it was still only enough for sixth place in ORC I according to the calculated time is also due to the almost brutal racing value of the Mills 45 individual construction. ORC I class winner "Intermezzo", for example, had to pay 9 minutes and 36 seconds per hour for the "Semi-dry 4.5". It could achieve this on pure reach courses, but hardly on a circuit with such varied conditions as the Blueribbon Cup 2020.
In the Dehler 30 OneDesign division, Oliver Schmidt-Rybandt won once again with Felix Hauss and Julia Röttger on "Power Play" from Regatta-Verein Greifswald. In ORC III, Heiko Päsler's team on the X-362 Sport "Static Electric" from Segler-Vereinigung Cuxhaven prevailed against Knut Freudenberg's small First 36.7 "Halbtrocken" and Tim Behrendt's "Frida". In ORC II, Werner Lemmel's Swan 46 "Rarotonga" won ahead of Dirk Clasen's "Ginkgo" and Mathias Müller von Blumencron's Class 40 "Red". In ORC I, the modified Landmark 43 "Intermezzo" with owner and helmsman Jens Kuphal, tactician Robert Stanjek and mainsail trimmer Max Gurgel won the race ahead of Lars Hückstadt's XP-44 "X-Day" and the "Zukunft IV" with Niklas Schubert, whose team was rewarded with the Zukunft Youth Prize for third place. The KDY trophy for the best boat according to ORC in the first part of the race went to the "Red" crew, while the KYC trophy for the best performance in the second part of the race went to "Static Electric", which also won the overall ORC classification.
"It was a really nice regatta," said a happy Sven Christensen from the Kiel Yacht Club subsidiary Point of Sailing. Together with head of organisation Eckart von der Mosel, Christensen had dedicated himself entirely to the Blueribbon Cup this weekend. Christensen and von der Mosel arrived at the gate in Middelfart just in time to see Michael Berghorn's "Halbtrocken 4.5" rush through first. The whole fleet passed through here between 2 and 10 p.m. on Friday. Some passed through the not exactly wide passage of only around 50 metres between land and the left-hand cornerstone as confidently as the two Class 40 yachts "Red" and "Rockall" or the crew of the "Intermezzo" and others: at full speed and under gennaker. There was even verbal applause for this from the competition over the radio. "I almost saw us on the pier at one point," reported "Intermezzo's" mainsail trimmer Max Gurgel with a smile, "but it went well, and shortly afterwards our navigator Heiner Wilkens came up the companionway and said we even got compliments."
The race had started in south-easterly winds with a sharp gennaker course out of the inner fjord until the wind shifted to the right and the boats were able to head straight for the entrance to the Little Belt. The crews on the "slippery boats" in particular had a lot of fun. With winds of up to 30 knots at the start, the race progressed quickly. Two teams - Falk Einecke's "Geronimo 2.0" and Robert Strobach's A-31 "Lucy" - had to give up with a broken mast. Holger Streckenbach's crew on the TP 52 "Imagine" had to abandon the race after a broken backstay. Many crews experienced the Little Belt with little to no wind in sometimes glassy water. The night also remained calm, with some light weather. There was a strong counter-current when crossing the Great Belt. "We completed an infinite number of tacks, easily 30 or more," recalls Max Gurgel. For the Kuphal crew and the entire leading group, things got more intense again from the southern tip of Langeland with winds of up to 20 knots. "It was super uncomfortable with the corresponding seas. There were still a lot of waves on the Schilksee course, but the weather was fine: wind and sunshine galore. While it was still raining cats and dogs at the start, we experienced perfect Kiel weather for the finale." For VmaxYachting founder Gurgel, crossing the finish line was a double pleasure, as he took the class win with Kuphal's "Intermezzo" crew and was also delighted that the "X-Day", which he optimised in his role as yacht modifier, reached the finish line as the second boat to be calculated.
The Class 40 duel between "Red" with owner and skipper Mathias Müller von Blumencron as well as 49er and Bundesliga ace Tobi Schadewaldt, Martin Buck and Volker Riechers on one side and Christopher Opielok's "Rockall" with offshore ace Jörg Riechers as well as Dietrich and Wolf Scheder on the other side was won by the latter with a four-minute lead after the time sailed. Calculated, however, the older "Red" had a clear lead of around two hours. "We are very pleased that Jörg and Opie only took four minutes off our sailed time with their new boat - and that only at the end. The race was great fun and showed that the Rund Fünen route is also extremely attractive from Germany. A great race!" Sven Christensen also took stock after more than 48 almost all-night hours for his land team, tired but happy: "We experienced all the facets of a northern German summer in this race. The participants obviously enjoyed it. We are happy about that."
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
