With bold wow starts and a large portion of aplomb, Team Germany reached another SailGP final just two weeks after their first triumph on Lake Geneva. At the penultimate event of the fifth season, Erik Kosegarten-Heil and his crew were the second-best team after seven fleet races.
When individual pieces become a finished puzzle
Here, the British and Kiwis put the German racing team in their place. This did not detract from the realisation that black-red-gold has been consistently serving up quality at a high level for some time now. Is this the long-awaited permanent breakthrough? Erik Kosegarten-Heil says: "We've always managed individual building blocks well. But now we are increasingly successful in putting the whole puzzle together."
This also applies to the helmsman himself, whose coach Lennart Briesenick attests to a "much better feeling" towards the end of his second SailGP year for Team Germany. "I think a switch has flipped. We know more and more how to play different starts," explained Briesenickt, after what the German team described as "mini slingshot starts" worked remarkably well in a series of race openings.
These starts are based on the typical starts of Team France: Les Bleus often like to take a very long reach and then push through to the start from far behind at a higher speed. Team Germany successfully practised a similar, but not quite as wide, variation several times. "That means a little less risk, but it's not without risk either," explains Lennart Briesenick.
The "mini slingshot starts" of the Germans
The "mini slingshot start" also relies on not starting from the formed front row with the other teams in front, but instead approaching the starting line from further back at a higher speed. The prerequisite for the success of this variant is to find the necessary gap to break through with optimum timing. This in turn requires a good overview of the fleet, the ability to anticipate and quick reactions. And all of this is based on experience in fleet behaviour.
Black-Red-Gold shone in all these disciplines this weekend. Erik Kosegarten-Heil and his crew were so consistently good that they could have been the front runners in the three-man final on Sunday. Could have. Could. Because there was still the penalty that the team had conceded in the infight with the French in the fourth race on Saturday. Because a penalised team had to drop behind its opponent, but the French had fallen off the foils, The clean-up had been agonisingly long for the Germans, who subsequently finished twelfth and last in the race.
It only became known on Sunday that the referee later apologised to Team Germany for his wrong decision. There is no redress in such cases in the SailGP. "Without the wrong decision on Saturday, we would probably have been first in the final. It's absolute madness. The upward trend continues," said Erik Kosegarten-Heil, who was nevertheless delighted with his team's strong performance.
We had super good fleetraces and also made good progress over the course." Erik Kosegarten-Heil
For him, the Cádiz final brought another special Olympic déjà vu: Team Germany's helmsman met the two helmsmen with whom he competed for the medals in the Olympic 49er final in Enoshima four years ago. The Andalusian SailGP event ended this Sunday exactly as it did on 2 August 2021: Dylan Fletcher won ahead of Peter Burling and Erik Kosegarten-Heil, who had sailed to his second bronze medal with Thomas Plößel back then.
Kiwis with a "magic move"
The German helmsman later bowed to the Kiwis, who he described as having made a "magical move" when they luffed his team at the start and in this way brought Team Germany and the British back together, only to initially race away themselves. The lead between the New Zealanders and the Brits changed hands several times before the Brits finally prevailed.
Erik Kosegarten-Heil said in his summary on Sunday evening: "We couldn't quite keep up with the speed of the other two good guys in the final and fell behind a bit. We had another chance at the end. We hoped we could still get a place. That didn't happen, but it was cool to finish an event like that."
With the Cádiz result, the league has formed for the grand finale in Abu Dhabi. The SailGP heavyweights still occupy the top three places, just in a different order, which will entitle them to a place in the final for two million US dollars after the last fleet races in Abu Dhabi. Team Emirates GBR (85 points) leads ahead of New Zealand's Black Foils (82 points) and Australia's record winners Bonds Flying Roos (80 points).
The Spanish defending champions, who were able to wrest the SailGP crown from the America's Cup-experienced racing teams last year, had a mini last-minute chance of making it to the showdown. Although Los Gallos (76 points) missed out on the final in fifth place in their home race, they are only four points behind Tom Slingsby and his Australian team. Click here for the SailGP table after eleven events and before the final in Abi Dhabi.
From the British team's botched start in the final to their Cádiz victory - what Dylan Fletcher, Peter Burling, Erik Kosegarten-Heil and the other skippers had to say about their performances at the weekend:
