The 2023 sailing year threatened to be poor in highlights. The Ocean Race starts at the end of 2022, Vendée Globe, America's Cup, Olympic Games - all superlative events, but not until 2024. But one regatta could dominate the headlines of the 2023 sailing summer: the World Sailing Championships.
It is held annually, alternating between the Baltic Sea and the Mediterranean. The World Championships in Tallinn (Estonia) this year will be followed by the World Championships at the Italian Yacht Club Costa Smeralda (Sardinia) in 2022. The Offshore Racing Congress has now awarded the World Championship to Kiel for 2023.
This would be the second time that Kiel has hosted the event and would have to measure itself against its own standards. 151 offshore yachts from 15 nations competed in the 2014 World Championship off Kiel. From 4 to 12 August 2023, the Kieler Yacht-Club would like to get as close as possible to its own record.
"Of course it's a big challenge, and we were able to really set standards in 2014. We want to build on that," says Eckart Reinke, Offshore Director of Kiel Week and one of three race officers at the World Championship off Kiel in 2014 alongside Stefan Kunstmann and Fabian Bach.
Reinke has been Chairman of the German Sailing Association's Sailing Committee since August this year and is recognised as an offshore expert. The internationally renowned race officer has already taken part in four world championships (2005, 2009, 2014 and 2021). He has also been involved in five European Championships, the America's Cup, the Nord Stream Race, the Farr40 Circuit and race management assignments throughout Europe.
Now the 56-year-old's big goal is to organise a high-calibre second ORC World Championship on his own doorstep "Kiel has a good reputation thanks to Kiel Week, and the 2014 World Championship showed what is possible in Kiel. The ORC community still raves about the Kiel World Championship, the top-class World Championship," says Reinke.
Lars Bolle
Chief Editor Digital
