German Ranking Opens With North Sails Cup

On 8 and 9 April the German Class Association sailed it's first ranking event which was hosted by "Segler Vereinigung Kreuzlingen" and organised by "North Sails Switzerland". The North Sails Cup is a Sportsboat Regatta under ORC-rule but as 9 Melges 24s were participating we got our own ranking list but were rated under ORC as well.

4 races were sailed on Saturday under bright sunshine but quite cool temperatures (below 15° C). The first race with a maximum of 10 knots breeze was won by Georg Hackl from Austria followed by German Class secretary Günter Tzeschlock on his brand-new GER 640 and in third place Ruedi Huber's SUI 578 helmed by Tom Ruegge (Swiss 49er Olympic sailor 2002). For the second race the wind picked lightly up and Tom Ruegge won his first race in the Melges 24 class, followed by Alba Batzill/Eddy Eich and Günter Tzeschlock.
For race No. 3 the wind direction changed to West and increased to 15 knots - Alba Batzill/Eddy Eich showed the best performance and were successful, second place went to Anka Hoch/Eduard Geyer and third place to the Austrian crew on AUT 164 helmed by Alexander Kastinger. Any news on Tom Rugged - yes, he scored his first BFD in Melges 24 class. Race No. 4 was sailed in similar conditions to the 3rd race and Tom Rugged was back in front winning with a clear lead ahead of GER 197 Lehman/Escher and Alba Batzill in 3rd place.

In the evening we were invited by SVK & North Sails Switzerland and it was a nice evening - a good possibility to speak about the season ahead of us.

Sunday there was no sailing due to no breeze combined with steady rain - so the race committee suggested in a skippers meeting to have the prize giving at 12:00 which was the right decision.

Overall ranking (Top 3):
1. GER 582, Alba Batzill / Eddy Eich - 14,0
2. SUI 578, Tom Ruegge / Ruedi Huber - 15,0
3. AUT 251, Josef Hackl - 16,0

Two more remarks:
1. As the event was set up for 6 races all 4 had to count and Tom Ruegge/Ruedi Huber had to accept 10 point for race No. 3 which finally made it impossible to win the first German Ranking Event.
2. Remarkable as well was the Melges 24's success under ORC-handicap rule, in every single race at least one Melges 24 scored in the top 3 of the 50 boat fleet. The first and last races were even won by M24 crews.

Again the North Sails Cup was a good start into the season - just the fact that some boats are already on south side of the Alpes is avoiding more entries from our Class Organisation.

Special thanks to Dani Schroff and Claudia Böhm (crew of Batzill/Eich) for their efforts to host a good event.

The German class is now looking ahead to Ranking No. 2 which will be sailed on 12/13 May 2006 at Lake Attersee and will be the first Melges 24 event in Austria. We look ahead to be 15 or more boats there. More details to be find on WWW.MELGES24.DE