When the 132nd Kiel Week gets underway on 20 June, the first half of the event will be dominated by the Olympic sailors. They will compete in their medal races in the middle of the week on 24 June. One of the most exciting German stories is that of the 49erFX: Maru Scheel is competing on home soil and, alongside her bowwoman Freya Feilcke, finds herself in the midst of a highly competitive field.
Olympic chapter featuring a strong German women’s team
Her brother, Linov Scheel, is a grinder on the Germany SailGP Team, whilst she herself was the helmswoman for the German women’s and youth teams at the 2024 Women’s and Youth America’s Cup in Barcelona. That says a lot about the siblings’ hunger for success; they have already made a name for themselves in international sailing. Maru Scheel is a competitor. The 49erFX helmswoman from Kiel shares the dream with her bowwoman, Freya Feilcke, of “winning a medal for Germany at the Olympic Games”.
The duo from the Kiel Yacht Club have just taken a significant step in this direction by finishing fifth in the World Championships. However, the top spots in their discipline are fiercely contested in this country: The sixth-placed Olympians from Marseille, Marla Bergmann and Hanna Wille, are among them, as are the 2025 World Championship fifth-place finishers Sophie Steinlein and Cathy Bartelheimer, the young SailGP strategist Anna Barth with the even younger Kiel native Emma Kohlhoff, and also Katharina Schwachhofer with Elena Stoltze. The battle between the FX duos is one of the fascinating stories that the Olympic chapter of Kiel Week will tell.
From an unwelcome start to an Olympic goal
Twenty-four-year-old Maru Scheel doesn’t come from a traditional sailing family. Her brother, who is four years older, was the first to take up sailing. “When he joined the KYC, I was taken along and left there. I didn’t really want to,” Maru recalls of her less-than-enthusiastic start. She caught the bug with her first Optimist regattas: “That was fun!”
Home match ahead of the European Championship
She now holds a bachelor’s degree in industrial design. Together with her bowwoman, Freya Feilcke, who studied medicine, Maru Scheel is setting her sights on the Olympics. They have been rowing together since 2017. In 2019, they competed in their first Kiel Week together. Who will win the 49erFX class on the fjord this year? She knows: “There are lots of good teams here, because our European Championships are taking place in Eckernförde straight after Kiel Week.”
What she likes about Kiel Week is “that you can sleep in your own bed and know where everything is”. It is also the chance to meet competitors from other classes that, for her, makes up “the special thing about Kiel Week”. She describes her home waters as follows: “It’s varied, ranging from shifting winds to a constant easterly with sharp, short waves.” The right attitude for that? She laughs and says:
“Stay open-minded and never give up!”
Who’s sailing there, actually?
To mark Kiel Week, we are introducing several key figures who will explain the different aspects of the regatta programme: Olympic sailing, offshore sailors with their big boats, and the international classes.
Maru Scheel marks the Olympic segment of Kiel Week. The Olympic sailors will be in action from 20 June onwards. They will compete in their medal races in the middle of the week on 24 June.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
