Over early in a strong breeze, but recovered to rank 8
QINGDAO. After several light wind days a strong and stormy low crossed the Olympic sailing city of Qingdao on Sunday (17 August). While the 470 women Steffi Rothweiler and Vivien Kussatz (Munich/Berlin) had a day off before starting into their medal race on Monday from position ten, the Star class fleet went out but could only complete one race. After an over early start which they cleared by rounding the starting buoy again Marc Pickel and Ingo Borkowski from Kiel and Babelsberg chased the fleet and finished on eighth place. This resulted in defending their fourth place overall, trailing the leading polish team Mateusz Kusznierewicz/Dominik Zycki by only four points.
Strong breeze and 2.5 meters high waves made Pickel/Borkowski surfing with their Star boat.
2.5 metre waves in the Fushan Bay gave the competitors a hard time, but not as hard as it was for the race committee. The starting vessel of the Star class and the Tornados suffered a leak on its way to the course and had to be towed back into the harbour. It took a while until a replacement was organised. But even then the fleets had to wait three more hours until a course could be laid properly.
At the first start many of the star boats had been over the line and a general recall would have been appropriate, but only an individual recall was signalled. “After such a long time of waiting in the pouring rain the race committee not only lost its patience but the overview as well”, criticised Marc Pickel. Together with Hamish Pepper and Carl Williams from New Zealand the German team where the only once to decide for the safe trip with a restart. Only the Portuguese crew was disqualified by OCS.
Pickel/Borkowski started their chase with a minute delay. And at the first windward mark they where only second to last. “But we had managed to close the gap already”, said the helmsman, who could make up the most places on the downwind leg. A look at the results list shows how close the competition is.
The medal race of the 470 women’s class was scheduled for 2 p.m. “We did not reach our goal to win a medal here”, said Rothweiler and Kussatz, “but we want to give everything in the last race to show that we belong to the top of the class.”
