Kieler Woche Day 9: Hosts without Sailing Grand Slam medals, but leading in five classes
by Kieler Woche 29 Jun 15:23 NZST
21-29 June 2025
Watersports at its best: FD crew Shmuel Markhoff and Lars Stöckmann battle with the elements during the buoy rounding © Christian Beeck/Kieler Woche
The final six medals in the mixed classes of the Olympic Sailing Grand Slam (SGS) at Kieler Woche will be awarded on Sunday (June 29) without any German contenders. In the 470, the British team Wrigley/Harris enters the final with a ten-point lead over the Spanish world champions Hernandez/Alcántara. Germans Löffler/Hoerr are in seventh place, Winkel/Schütze tenth, both with a significant gap. In the Nacra 17, Mourniac/Retornaz (France) hold the top spot, three points ahead of Gimson/Burnet (GBR), with no German teams in the top ten. However, local sailors are leading in five international classes.
Once again, ideal sailing conditions with moderate to fresh winds allowed all classes to enjoy a full day of racing. The 470 leaders, after two average sixth-place finishes in the last qualifying races, will need to prove in the medal race that they can withstand the pressure from their pursuers. The world champions moved up to second place but need to gain five more positions in the final. "With the black flag, we held back at the start and then had to fight hard for position," reported Jordi Xammar Hernandez. Their downwind speed was outstanding, securing them first and second place finishes.
The catamaran final lineup was only decided in the twelfth and last qualifying race. Mourniac/Retornaz added a second bullet of the day, while the Olympic silver medalists from Britain dropped to third, losing exactly the three points they now trail by. Liddell/Brown from Australia have secured bronze but only have a mathematical chance of challenging the top two.
Germans Moritz Borowiak and Noel Jonas Theiner remain clearly on course for victory in the 420 class. New runners-up are Filip Nosol and Filip Marjanski from Poland. Christoph Homeier from Bremen extended his lead in the Contender class ahead of Jesper Armbrust (Denmark) and Mark Bulka (Australia).
Michael Grau and his crew from NRV Hamburg showed a clean sheet in the J/70 class. Despite three wins, a BFD and a major slip-up left them 26 points behind Sten Mohr and his Danish team. Tied with Grau, Kai-Uwe Hollweg & Co. from Bremen are in third. In the J/24 class, Stefan Karsunke and his Hamburg team are almost certain to win Kieler Woche after three more victories.
Home country sailors were the top performers of the day in the OK dinghy class. But Niklas Edler (Sweden) narrowly defended first place. André Budzien (Schwerin) and Dutch Stefan de Vries, a coach living and working in Essen, each claimed a race win and a second-place finish. Edler remains in the lead ahead of Budzien and Baabii'O Flower from Canada. "The podium will be tough, but I want to go full throttle at the end now that things are finally going well," said fourth-placed de Vries.
Timmy Vassallo from Malta was the standout sailor in the ILCA 4, extending his lead with four wins from four races, ahead of Viktor Elfving (Sweden) and Mats Silva Østvold (Norway). In the ILCA 6 open class, Levian Büscher from Düsseldorf took the lead with a bullet in the ninth race, pushing Benedek Héder (Hungary) and Stefano Siebert Francavilla (Brazil) to second and third.
A thriller is on the program for the FD sailors on Sunday: Hungarians Scabolcs Majthenyi/András Domokos will start the last two races with a tiny buffer of 0.6 points on their pursuers Kilian König and Kai Schäfers. The 'scene of the crime' for the duel between the Hungarians and the crew from Hannover will be the Kiel fjord. Back in winning form is Heiko Kröger from Germany. The Sydney 2000 Paralympic gold medalist still masters his 2.4mR "V8" like no other, even a quarter-century later, and was visibly pleased after three race wins. Compatriot Christoph Trömer (vice world champion) and Frank Huth (Norway) couldn't match his performance.
Jens Kuphal from Berlin became the international German offshore champion in ORC A/B with his new XR-41 "Exciter." His crew won both the Aalregatta and the Silbernes Band, the overnight long-distance race from Kiel around the island of Langeland, Denmark and back. "Our trump card was a mainsail with a reef, which we used because the strong wind didn't ease overnight," said the skipper. The yacht remained controllable without losing speed. Kuphal: "More than 20 gybes in the dark weren't easy. We still need to fine-tune for the World Championship." After more than 16 hours on the water, their calculated lead over "Sons of Hurricans" (Jon Sverre Hoiden, Norway) was a massive 76 minutes and 26 seconds.
On "Patent 4", owned by Jürgen Klinghardt (who was absent due to injury), the joy was just as great. With Oliver Voss at the helm, the seven-person crew of the Italia 9.98 won the ORC C/D title. "A great performance with a new setup," praised the owner. "We upgraded from an 82-square-meter spinnaker to a 120-square-meter gennaker. That makes the boat much more agile." The team aims to improve boat speed in 8-12 knots of wind for the World Championship. The IDM Double-Handed title went to Bernd Dreier and Jan Assmann from Flensburg, who won both the Senatspreis and the Silbernes Band.
Full results available here.