International winners in outstanding Baltic Sprint Cup 2008

03.08.08

The show is over - 638 sailors, 61 owners, 6 Patrons, 5 sponsors, 9 team members, almost 80 helpers and 6 harbour and city authorities are happy! Warmest thanks to all who made the Baltic Sprint Cup 2008 such an outstanding success and congratulations to the winners who made their mark on this international offshore regatta.

First overall in the cruising and racing divisions of the Baltic Sprint Cup 2008 are from Sweden and the United Kingdom. The five legs of the fourth edition that led 61 offshore yachts to five Baltic rim countries saw a thrilling finale in the cruising division. On the way from Gdańsk, Poland to Rønne, Denmark, Stefan Qviberg’s Summer Wine beat her German adversaries Chaos Quarante (Thomas Nielsen) and Flying Circus (Wolfgang Uecker). The racing division saw a British double victory with Danebury, skippered by Mike Castania just ahead of RORC Commodore David Aisher’s Yeoman XXXII with best German yacht Christopher Wuttke’s guts ’n glory third overall. Winners and competitors joined forces for a tremendous final prize-giving party – the “final showdown” - superbly hosted by Bank DnB NORD on Friday evening (1 August) on the Danish holiday island of Bornholm.

 

"It was a fantastic race with close fighting on every one of the 710 nautical miles of the course”, said Stefan Qviberg, who had designed his victorious Arcona 400 “Summer Wine” himself. Winning the final leg secured him the decisive lead of one point ahead of Chaos Quarante, a Dufour 40 who finished only fourth in the last leg of the regatta. In the end, it had been the mostly light breeze that decided the race in the Swedishman’s favour. „The boat is designed for light winds,” explained Qviberg, „but we also survived the strong breeze at the beginning.”

On Friday afternoon, the Swedish team had already cooled some sparkling „summer wine“. “The first cork flew off the bottle as early as 2 p.m.,” said skipper Qviberg, “and we’ll keep on partying until late at night.” He has already planned his entry in the next Baltic Sprint Cup in 2009: “We will probably start with a new 43-foot cruiser-racer”, said the yacht designer, while event organizers SAIL & RACE announced they will publish details of the 2009 Baltic Sprint Cup this autumn.

US-American Mike Castania, too, has taken a great liking to the two-week regatta he had been leading from day one. “We snatched the lead in a 32-knot squall on the way to Sweden”, explained the skipper of a professional and international crew who sailed Danebury to a win  in the first leg. The Baltic Sprint Cup had set off from the 119th Travemuende Week to Karlskrona, Sweden. The yacht finished second in two legs and sixth in the round-the-buoys races in Poland. They discarded this result, and went on to win the final leg.

“We kept to sailing conservatively, but fully exploited the speed potential of this excellent boat”, explained Castania, who declared himself very content with his crew’s perfect choice of sails. The yacht was out of reach of her two sister boats, but the three Rogers 46s all raced to podium places. So for yacht designer Simon Rogers, who had come to Rønne to celebrate his victorious trio, the Baltic Sprint Cup was a success through and through.

It was as if a bomb had hit them, when the latest provisional results came in at 2 a.m. while Christopher Wuttke’s guts ’n glory crew was in full swing celebrating with Tilmar Hansen’s Outsider team.  It can happen that leading boats make a finish just before the wind drops, thus “shutting the gate” on all following boats.  But this time, an unforeseen evening breeze off the island of Bornholm brought many boats in to the finish during the night, causing Outsider to drop to 14 th on corrected time. And as the final leg could not be discarded, Hansen had to step down from the podium and finished only sixth overall.

“They were speechless for a moment, but then congratulated us right away”, reported Wuttke, “then we all switched gears, and the party went on anyway.” The 2008 Baltic Sprint Cup was Wuttke’s third entry, and he says it was a “world class event” from beginning to end. Ranging from the start-up party in Travemuende, hosted by his own “SE Spezial-Electronic AG” company to the outstanding Klaipeda Sea Festival in Lithuania and the big showdown on Bornholm, the whole event received much praise, said Wuttke. And many teams are already looking forward to the fifth edition of the Baltic Sprint Cup.

“So we want to continue the fun with a five-year anniversary next year”, promised event manager Henning Rocholl from Hamburg and race director Alan Green from London. After the regatta’s debut in 2005, SAIL & RACE had taken charge of the organization of this Baltic regatta, the aim of which is to foster the pan-Baltic trade traditions. All in all, 166 yachts from 13 nations have visited 18 different Baltic port cities in nine countries in the four editions so far. The course and time schedule of the fifth Baltic Sprint Cup will be announced in autumn this year.

Bank DnB NORD CEO Sven Herlyn sailed his own Luffe 40 “Red ‘n Hot” in all four of the offshore legs recalling his initiative in creating the original Baltic Sprint Cup in 2005: “Offshore sailing helps to build and strengthen links between communities” said Herlyn, whose vision was to build on the traditional Baltic links of trade and commerce in a spirit of fair play.  “I am proud that this event, with the help of DnB NORD, is proving such a great success in meeting these objectives”.

SAIL & RACE, organizing group behind the Baltic Sprint Cup 2008 are leaders in the latest technology in event management.  “To back up our team of people moving from port to port we have a sophisticated system whereby data on all boats and personnel is maintained for instant access through the world wide web.” said Event Director Henning Rocholl.  Much of this data is input by yachts themselves.   There is more: “The Baltic Sprint Cup tracker system uses the Iridium low-earth-orbit satellite network and tracker beacons (supplied by the RORC and OC Tracker of Cowes)” said Rocholl, “and each boat reports to the event web site every 30 minutes.  Boat tracks can be re-played and will remain on the web site after the event.  For Search and Rescue the units can be remotely controlled to deliver reports at up to five-minute intervals.  Yacht progress can be watched by anyone with access to the internet and nowadays, this includes some competing yachts.”  Race Results are also hi-tech.  Race Director Alan Green: “No longer is it necessary to go to the Race Office noticeboard to look at a piece of paper – finishing times are entered into a remote web-based system which immediately updates the results and displays them on the event web site.  Often this means that supporters at home know a yacht’s race results even before the crew.”  Henning Rocholl “We shall continue to employ the most up-to-date technology appropriate to our needs to ensure that SAIL & RACE always delivers the best possible service to participants”.

Overall results of the fourth Baltic Sprint Cup for offshore yachts

RACER DIVISION – over both classes
1 Danebury (Mike Castania/Great Britain) 6 points
2 Yeoman XXXII (David Aisher/Great Britain) 12
3 guts ’n glory (Christopher Wuttke/Germany) 21
4 Essex Girl (Hans Hamel/Sweden) 22
5 Scho-ka-kola (Uwe Lebens/Germany) 23
6 Outsider (Tilmar Hansen/Germany) 26

 
CRUISER DIVISION – over both classes
1 Summer Wine (Stefan Qviberg/Sweden) 7 points
2 Chaos quarante (Thomas Nielsen/Germany) 8
3 Flying Circus (Wolfgang Uecker/Germany)
4 Meltemi (Harald Graf von Saurma-Jeltsch/Germany) 17
5 Conte (Rudolf Schubert/Germany) 22
6 Philomena (Eggert Schuett/Germany) 29

RACER CLASS 1
1 Danebury (Mike Castania/Great Britain) 6 points
2 Yeoman XXXII (David Aisher/Great Britain) 12
3 guts ’n glory (Christopher Wuttke/Germany) 21

 
RACER CLASS 2
1 Emil Reiseschwein (Stefan Hummelt/Germany) 10 points
2 Schueddelfrost (Friedrich Boehnert/Germany) 12
3 Inschallah VI (Volker Andreae/Germany) 13

CRUISER CLASS 1
1 Summer Wine (Stefan Qviberg/Sweden) 4 points
2 Meltemi (Harald Graf von Saurma-Jeltsch/Germany) 8
3 Philomena (Eggert Schuett/Germany) 14

 
CRUISER CLASS 2
1 Chaos quarante (Thomas Nielsen/Germany) 5 points
2 Flying Circus (Wolfgang Uecker/Germany) 6
3 Conte (Rudolf Schubert/Germany) 13

TEAM AWARD
Racer: Danebury/Essex Girl
Cruiser: Conte/Avanti (Norbert Hoessermann/Germany)

 
YOUTH AWARD
Racer: Schueddelfrost
Cruiser: Philomena

 
BALTIC SPRINT CUP AWARD (Best overall 2007 and 2008 - Racer Division)
Schueddelfrost

 
SPEED AWARD (Fastest time over all legs)
Calypso (Gerhard Clausen/Germany) 75:48.45 hours