What happened so far ....
24.07.07All skippers and crews of the 25 boats participating in first leg of the Baltic Sprint Cup from Copenhagen to Sassnitz attended a great party hosted at the Bank DnB NORD headquarters on the 19th July. Baltic Sprint Cup committee chairman and Bank DnB NORD CEO, Sven Herlyn welcomed everyone and wished them fair winds on the third year of the Baltic Sprint Cup. Everybody enjoyed the party, the excellent food, especially the free Nestlé ice-cream and the drinks. Another great part of this evening was the first round of the “Starting Buoy Pumping Up Competition” during which the crew of the Scamp set the standard high at 8 min 8.18 sec.
Start leg 1 Copenhagen - Sassnitz
The weather on the following day was nice, the sky was all clear, no rain, but sadly, there was only very little wind. The sailing yacht “Frühstücksdirektor” had a spectacular start as the first boat to pass all the initial course marks. Although all the other yachts managed to catch up with them at several points during race, SY “Frühstücksdirektor” kept their lead and was the first ship home. They also won the yellow flag as leading yacht so far, the winner over both classes in leg one and winner of Class A.
The second prize in Class A went to SY “Emil Reiseschwein” and the third to SY “Philomena”. The winner in Class B was SY “Meltemi”, SY “Chaos quarante” became second in this class and SY “Schüddelfrost” third. Overall, the winner SY “Frühstücksdirektor” was followed by SY “Meltemi” and SY “Emil Reiseschwein”. Complete result tables can be found here.
Once the boats arrived in Rügen, a very warm welcome was extended to them from the city and the port of Sassnitz. The crews were provided with an early breakfast and drinks as well as a bag from SOLON AG with a few useful things for their stay in Sassnitz. This bag contained among other things a can with tinned fish, a bottled ship and a piece of the famous Rügener chalk.
On the evening of the same day, after the sailors had tried to retrieve the sleep they missed out on while they where at sea, everyone went to the SOLON AG party where the first prize giving took place. A big honour to the fleet was the presence of the Mayor of Sassnitz, Dieter Holtz, the patron of the Baltic Sprint Cup 2007 in Sassnitz, who presented the trophies and cups at the prize giving. Afterwards the sailors were asked to donate to the DGzRS, which were a great support and provided ships for the finishing and starting lines. The guests were entertained by a dance group, “Princess of Dance” from Rostock and a DJ.
Because of a heavy gale warning the start on Sunday was delayed for eighteen hours and thirty minutes until Monday the 23rd July. However the bad weather, which lead to severe problems in many places in Germany, was not as strong in along the coast as forecasted, but did bring a bunch of grey clouds and lots of rain. Fortunately the rain only started after the breakfast of different fish sandwiches which was sponsored by Rügen Fisch. After the breakfast the sailors were entertained by the second round of the “Starting Buoy Pumping Up Competition”. The crew of SY “Emil Reiseschwein”, who fought against the crew of SY “Gunvør XL” and set a new record of 7 minutes 56 seconds 25, after optimising their technique (and the pump).
Luckily the clouds disappeared just minutes before the start of the second leg and all boats hoisted their spinnaker immediately after crossing the starting line between the two SAR boats of the DGzRS in twenty-five knots of wind. Unfortunately SY “Frühstücksdirektor”, the crew still in an aggressive mood from their victory in leg one, crossed the line a few seconds too early and therefore had to take down the spinnaker for a restarted eight minutes later.
Because the wind was forecasted to decrease to nothing later in the day, the race committee decided to shorten of the second leg the course from originally 200 to 170 miles. The new finishing line is at Wladislawowo, Poland, which proved to be a good decision. At the present time, many yachts are just a few miles away from the finishing line in four to seven knots of wind.
Surely after this leg, which is by far the longest of this years Baltic Sprint Cup, the sailors are looking forward to the reception sponsored by the City of Gdańsk and the second prize giving at the DnB NORD/BISE party.
Deike Schütt
(Event Assistance)
