Andrea Racchelli Wins Melges 24 Class At Kiel Week
Guetner Tzeschock reports from Kiel Week - After a few years break the Melges24 class was invited to participate in Kieler Woche 2010 and the German Class accepted with pleasure.
The race was selected to count for the IMCA Wolrd Ranking 2010 and therefore we expected a big fleet – in the end 22 boats were on the starting line coming from 6 different nations.
The races were running parallel to the Olympic Classes and we met a lot of the big shots in Dinghy and Keelboat-Racing. Most of them confirmed they are very interested in the Melges24 class and we did our best to deliver a good show.
Saturday started with winds up to 20 - 25 knots and the Melges24 class showed spectacular surfs – business as usual for us but very exciting for other classes. 3 races good be sailed in these challenging conditions and the former Tornado World Champion Oliver Schwall showed excellent performance with 2 bullets and a 2nd place – Team GER 627 “Rat Pack” was on the top of the leader board after Day 1.
From Sunday to Wednesday the winds were lighter. Sometimes tricky – sometimes still hiking conditions, a very good training for the Worlds 2010 where similar conditions are expected.
The best performance in these conditions showed Andrea Racchelli on ITA 735 “Altea”.
In total 12 races could be sailed during the 5 days racing and the Racchelli-team could win 8 of them – a very impressing performance. A team to be watched for at the 2010 Worlds!!
Oliver Schwall could place in 2nd safely but fight for place 3 was tight between 3 teams: “Aloha” from Czech republic, “Ka Nalu Nui” from Germany and “Mini Mostro” from the Netherlands.
In the end Kotek Kamil was the happy one taking place 3.
What else? In principle Kieler Woche is a must for the Melges24 class but if there is no better acceptance from the Scandinavian classes it make no sense to continue starting there. German Class in Northern Germany is still not big enough to guarantee big entry numbers.
The race committee did a very good job and was able to present us 12 races on course Foxtrott which is approx 3 miles outside the marina – some Olympic Classes sailing close to Schilksee sailed just 4 races in 5 days…
The German Class wants to thank the starters from abroad coming from Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands, Czech Republic and Italy.
Congratulations to Andrea Racchelli and his teammates Gaudenzio Bonini, Alberto Verna and Massimiliano Ferrari – all of the them are great sportsman and were the proud winners of Kieler Woche 2010.
24.06.2010 / GT
Links:
Results:
http://results.regatta-info.de/upload/ergebnisslisten/2010-06-23_Melges%2024_Wettfahrt_12.pdf
Fotos (copyright Landeshauptstadt Kiel!!)