It was like so often in the sport of ice sailing: the World Championships for the DN class, the highest-calibre and most widespread type of sled, were to be held in Poland. But the air there was too warm and the ice melted.
So the DN team moved. To Haapsalu in Estonia. The races were finally held between 18 and 22 February. But not all the races could be held there either. Stormy winds made the ice brittle and the campsites muddy, so that the sailors had to change accommodation during the week. In the last race of the World Championship, tile crack Ron Sherry from the USA took the title in the gold fleet. Ahead of the German-Polish multi champion Karol Jablonski. Bernd Zeiger from Kiel came sixth overall. The last day of the World Championships was so windy that sleds made off across the ice without their pilots, despite the skid brakes. In some fleets (there were still silver, bronze and aluminium fleets, each with around 50 sleds) the last runs were simply cancelled. After all, the DN class was supposed to put on a demo race at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. This Olympic show was hotly debated in the class until it was finally put on ice in a different way. Experts believe that the discipline of ice sailing is simply too difficult to plan for Olympic and therefore media purposes.
