By Brian Haines
Travelling to Kieler Woche was an exciting opportunity to compete in a regatta I had been hearing about for years, and to sail in one of the deepest 505 fleets in the world. With the upcoming 505 World Championships in La Rochelle, France, the German fleet has put in a lot of hours on the water, and it shows.
Ted Conrads and I sailed 505s together for three years while we were both living in San Francisco, and have continued to do so since my move back to San Diego a year ago. We decided to sail Kieler Woche as a warm-up event for the Worlds at the end of July, and also to pick up a new boat from Holger Jess, rigger extraordinaire. Those who have sailed, or even seen a modern 505 can understand that getting a new 505 dialed in is a bit of a process. Fortunately, the boat that we have been sailing for the past two years was rigged almost identically and we were on the water, nearly up to speed within a few hours of arriving.
The first day of racing started off light, sunny and warm. It was hard to believe that we had been warned a drysuit might come in handy, even in June. The breeze gradually filled in from the N-NE for the first race, and by the end of the third race we were sailing in about 20 knots of breeze and some big swells. Beautiful sailing on the Baltic, although these conditions are typically pretty tough on us- the “real” 505 crews laugh at my 170 lbs on the wire. Learning to sail these boats on San Francisco Bay against some of the best big breeze sailors in the World has helped us get to a point where we can sail the boat around the course pretty well, despite our weight. We were pleased to finish up the first day in third overall, with the next six boats right on our heels.
The remaining three days of racing were sailed in trickier conditions, as the W-SW breeze comes straight offshore for Charlie course. Local knowledge seemed to indicate the left side of the course would be favored, as 5-time world champion Wolfgang Hunger (not to mention this year marked his 20th time winning Kieler Woche in the 505 or 470) was setting up for an early gate start. Rather than try to reinvent the wheel, we decided to gate early so that our options on the left side of the course were open. More often than not for the last three days of the event, this ended up being the best strategy. The bottom right side of the course often had much more consistent breeze, but the critical decision was when to cross the course to get the left shifts at the top. We didn’t play this as well as some of the other boats, and found ourselves slipping back in the standing over the next few days. We ended the event in 7th place overall out of 50 boats, just short of our top-5 goal.
Kieler Woche was a great opportunity to race against some excellent sailors and to get the boat tuned up for Worlds. We learned a lot about our downwind sailing technique in moderate breeze, which had been a weakness in the past. Having just finished the Pre-Worlds event in moderate conditions, I’m pleased to say that our downwind speed seems to be right on par with, or better than the top boats.
A big thank you to the SDYC Competition Fund for the support. Traveling overseas to events like Kieler Woche is a great learning experience and opportunity to represent SDYC on the international racing scene.