Only one race was sailed on Saturday at the Laser Youth World Championships (U-21) in Kiel. With winds of 20 to 25 knots and gusts up to 30 knots (beaufort seven), the race committee sent the 200 sailors back to the marina due to increasing winds of an approaching front. While the lead changed in the men’s fleet of the Laser Standard, when Jonatan Vadnei from Hungary won the day’s single race and thus took over the lead, the dominating sailor in the women’s fleet of the Laser Radial, Monika Mikkola from Finland remained atop the standings despite having capsized and finished the race in fourth position. The best German remains Nik Aaron Willim (Schleswig/Germany, Norddeutscher Regatta-Verein), who held on to his rank of three with a third place.
With a current helping push boats across the line, it required multiple start attempts to get the sailors on the course.
Jonatan Vadnei started at the left end of the start line. “I waited for the left shift and then I crossed the whole fleet and was the first at the windward mark”, stated the Hungarian sailor (18) from Balatonfuered. On the second downwind, he was able to get clear from the Swiss Nils Theuninck (19, Lausanne), who was ahad been trailing him closely to that point in the race. “I am very happy with the second place of course”, said the student of biomedicine. “I was trying to control the right side. Because the forecast was saying the winds would turn to the right side. That paid off in the end. “
Nik Willim stuck to his conservative strategy: “I started pretty much in the middle. There were shifting conditions. I did not arrive too well at the top, since the fleets were coming from both sides.” But with good speed he could take over some competitors and was the third across the finish line. “Maybe I’m gonna take some more risks in the next days and start at the sides”, the sailor from the Sailing Team Germany is more confident about his abilities.
The Russian Maxim Nikolaev won the race in the blue group. “I was on the left side. With one tack and full speed I was approaching the windward mark.” The 20-year old student at the sports university in Moscow is on the water almost all the time. At the U-21 Worlds, he already had two yellow flags (for non-allowed pumping with the sail) and a discard, so he now is – despite the fact that he is ranked seventh in the regatta – sailing “just for fun”. His objective for the future is the Olympic Games 2020 in Tokyo.
“I was swimming quite a lot”, said the top ranked Monika Mikkola (Finland) in the women’s Laser Radial. She was in the lead, when she capsized on the second upwind. She crossed the finish line in fourth position – and holds onto the overall lead. “But if you have a chance to win…”, she was not really satisfied with the result. The British Ellie Cumpsty benefited from that. “I got a bit nervous downwind and I nearly capsized.” But she kept the boat upright.
Cumpsty had chosen to go through the middle and played the shifts. Winning the race moved her up overall into fifth. The French sailor Marie Barrue was one of the early starters and thus qualified in the fifth race. She now dropped down from second to sixth in the women’s fleet. But she did not give up the fight to finish at the top: „Tomorrow I will win both races!“
The qualifier round of the Laser Youth World Championships will continue on Sunday, 11am.
The races of the women in the Laser Radial on Sunday can also be watched live on the event website:
live tracking
live streaming
U-21 World Championship in the Laser Standard (men)
Interim ranking after 5 races (1 discard)
1. Jonatan Vadnei (Hungary), places 1, 6, (9), 1, 1; 9 points
2. Joel Rodriguez (Spain), 1, 2, (5), 1, 5; 9 p.
3. Nik Aaron Willim (NRV, Germany), 4, 5, (8), 3, 3; 15 p.
4. Max Gallant (Canada), 7, 11, (24), 3, 2; 23 p.
5. Santiago Sampaio (Portugal), 3, 4, 10, 7, (18); 24 p.
6. Romain Simonnot (France), 6, 3, 6, (18), 12; 27 p.
16. Max Wilken (Germany), (20), 16, 1, 5, 19; 41 p.
U-21 World Championship in the Laser Radial (women)
Interim ranking after 5 races (1 discard)
1. Monika Mikkola (Finland), places (4), 1, 1, 1, 4; 7 points
2. Maud Jayet (Switzerland), 1, 5, (7), 4, 3; 13 p.
3. Maité Carlier (Belgium), 2, 4, 4, 3, (8); 13 p.
4. Vasileia Karachaliou (Greece), 5, 2, 3, (12), 7; 17 p.
5. Elli Cumpsty (Great Britain), 6, 7, (19), 6, 1; 20 p.
6. Marie Barrue (France), 3, 21, 2, 2, (58 bfd); 28 p.
22. Laura Bo Voss (Germany), 24, (28), 14, 7, 21; 66 p.
Laser Standard Men and Laser Radial Women Youth Worlds (U21):
Tuesday, 9. August: check-in, measurement
Wednesday, 10. August: check-in, measurement, 2pm: practice race, 7:30pm: opening ceremony/dinner
Thursday, 11. August: 11am: qualification round
Friday, 12. August: 11am: qualification round
Saturday, 13. August: 11am: qualification round, 7pm midweek party with dinner
Sunday, 14. August 11am: qualification round
Monday, 15. August, 11am: final round
Tuesday, 16. August, 11am: final round, after that prize giving ceremony and final party/dinner
Website: Laser worlds Kiel 2016
Facebook: facebook.com/
[photo: www.segel-bilder.de]