Donald Bieke wins at Warnemuende Week 2013

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Report by Guido Shulte - CLOSE RACING IN TOUGH CONDITIONS – WARNEMUENDE WEEK 2013
Germany’s beautiful seaside location Warnemuende on the open Baltic Sea saw fantastic conditions on the first day with 4-5 Bft and up to 1m waves, sunny and reasonable warm. 17 competitors from all Germany and Denmark came to the 3-day regatta with its nice white sandy beaches within the area of the intended Olympic resort Hohe Düne.
The first race was won by Donald Beike, followed by Guido Schulte and Peter Klemenz. Peter demonstrated a very impressive upwind speed, while Guido dominated downwind. The following races showed quite similar outcomes with Guido winning the second and fourth race and Donald the third. Jörg Horn, Danny Bollnow and Peter Boldsen from Denmark were fighting for the 4th place.

The weather forecast for the weekend promised more wind for Saturday and much more for Sunday. Eventually on Saturday, Race 5 started with good 5+ Bft. and steep waves up to 1.5 m wave height, demanding and challenging. However, after a mast breakage on two boats and one fitting failure on a third, which lead to the mast coming down, the race officer decided to cancel further races as almost all allocated rescue boats were now occupied for salvage duties. So lessons learnt from Bodensee. The decision proved to be a wise one as the wind increased even further up to 24 knots, so further racing was postponed to Sunday, where the wind eventually even went up to 34 knots, so no further racing after race 5.

Within race 5, positioned second after the first day, Donald took the full risk of a port start, which was rewarded with a lead of 100m ahead of Peter and Guido at the windward mark. Peter Boldsen was following, then Danny Bollnow. Donald could save the lead into the finish, closely followed by Guido on second and Peter on third. So Donald and Guido even on points, Donald won through sailing one more bullet. Congratulations to a strong and consistent performance!

- Donald Beike DNA/Fiberfoam/Landenberger
- Guido Schulte DNA/Saarberg/HAMMER
- Peter Klemenz Nikita/Saarberg/Landenberger
- Jörg Horn Nikita/Fiberfoam/Ashby
- Danny Bollnow DNA/Saarberg/HAMMER

Full results at http://www.raceoffice.org/data/wawo2013/wawo2013.4848.PDF
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