Crisp, rough and demanding: The 4th Baltic 500 is underway!: Trimmed Baltic 500 fleet defies stormy winds

The 4th edition of the Baltic 500 started as expected: strong winds, rough and challenging. The field, which had originally been reduced from more than 40 participants to 26, lost a further two participants after the start in 25 to 30 knots of wind in Strander Bucht, made correspondingly fast progress. Some sailors made it a little more difficult for themselves than necessary with an early start. These included Jonas Hallberg and Till Barth on the JPK 10.30 "Hinden" and Mathias Müller von Blumencron and Martin Buck on the line-honours favourite "Red". The latter even wanted to make up for their mistake by returning to the line, but this is not possible under the Baltic 500 regulations. Early starters are always penalised with a 60-minute time penalty.

The fast Class 40 "Red" will not be affected too much by the time penalty in this record-breaking race. There are 500 nautical miles left to make up for the small mistake at the start, including a very skilful but ineffective adjustment. A few hours after the start, "Red" was already clearly leading the fleet at the Great Belt Bridge, but was still stubbornly pursued by Oliver Schmidt-Rybandt and Niclas Aretz on the Dehler 30 od "Powerplay" and behind them the JPK 11.80 "Frida" with Tim Behrendt and Andreas Buchheim as well as the "Hinden". Michael Höfgen and Max Gurgel had also got themselves into a good position on Thursday afternoon a little to the south-west of the other two JPKs across the bay of Kerteminde with their JPK 10.30 "Lightworks".

The first crews had already reported gusts of up to 40 knots to the regatta organisers at the Yacht Club Strande in the afternoon. The stormy conditions have therefore started a little earlier than expected. However, organisation manager and co-founder Cord Hall, who is sending the field clockwise on the 500 nautical mile course around Læsø and the Danish islands as expected, is convinced: "There are mostly people in the race who know what they are doing." Click here for tracking: Scroll down the page a little and then click on "Overall Ranking" for the entire fleet or the individual divisions.