Bremen, Hamburg and Schwerin are the first winners in the promotion battle of the time league teams: The sailing team "Wappen von Bremen" (SKWB), the Hamburg Sailing Club (HSC) and the Schwerin Yacht Club (SYC) have succeeded in gaining direct promotion to the 1st Sailing Bundesliga at the fifth and final second league regatta of the season.
HSC helmswoman Silke Hahlbrock, Maren Hahlbrock, Luisa Krüger and Lamberto Cesari cheered the loudest - after a delay. After a hard-fought last race, they initially thought they had missed out on direct promotion before the redemptive message came. Then cries of joy could be heard hundreds of metres away from the crew of the Hamburg Sailing Club.
The best moments, the most exciting scenes and lots of emotions in the video summary
The SKWB crew performed impressively and confidently this weekend, dominating the second league matches. Gordon Nickel, Morten Nickel, Thomas Dehler and Nick Schlomka sailed to eleven victories in 17 races. The Bremen quartet usually lived up to their team motto: "Go out first, don't let anyone overtake you!" Helmsman Gordon Nickel said before the award ceremony: "We are super happy that we made it straight back into the 1st division. We simply had a good rhythm here in Kiel. Coupled with the good mood on board, it simply went perfectly." The Potsdamer Yacht-Club (PYC) sailed to second place in Kiel ahead of the Seglervereinigung 1903 Berlin. Fourth place was enough for the HSC crew to finish second behind the Bremen team and secure promotion to the 1st Bundesliga, as did the Schweriner Yacht-Club, which secured its third and final direct first league ticket with a one-point lead over the Mühlenberger Segelclub. The Mühlenberger had finished seventh in Kiel after 15 races, narrowly missing out on a place in the final races, and had to watch from shore as the Schwerin team snatched the direct promotion ticket away from them on the last downwind leg of the last race by jumping from sixth to fourth place.
This means that Mühlenberger Segelclub, Potsdamer Yacht-Club and Konstanzer Yacht-Club will enter the relegation play-off. Their opponents, the first division teams in 13th to 15th place, will not be determined until the final of the 1st Bundesliga at the end of October. Two points behind sixth place, the Blankeneser Segel-Club narrowly missed out on the chance of promotion to the 1st Bundesliga.
DTYC on course for title defence
For the first division teams, 17 rounds and a total of 47 races on the Kiel Fjord only marked the penultimate weekend of the league - the final will take place from 27 to 29 October on the Outer Alster in Hamburg. In Kiel, the German Touring Yacht Club with Julian Stückl, Patrick Follmann, Jonas Vogt and Luis Tarabochia once again came out on top. "We are super happy that it worked out again here in Kiel, because it didn't look like it was going to. We have a big, strong team that we can draw on and maybe that's why we're so strong," said Jonas Vogt.
The Norddeutscher Regatta Verein (NRV) and the Bayerischer Yacht-Club (BYC) sailed to second and third place in Germany's number one Sailing City. The German Touring Yacht Club (DTYC, 11 points) has thus extended its lead in the overall standings to eleven points ahead of the Seglerhaus am Wannsee club (VSaW, 22 points) and will be very difficult to dislodge from the top of the league in the battle for the German club championship.
After finishing 7th in Kiel, VSaW is now three points ahead of third-placed Lindauer Segler-Club (25 points) in the league table, who did not finish higher than 14th in the North this weekend. A total of six clubs still have theoretical hopes of a first division podium place at the end of the season. These include the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein (40 points) in sixth place, which after some poor results in Kiel was once again able to shine with second place and even had a chance of winning until the last race.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
