85 crews from 20 nations expected at the Europeans

Having kicked off the season with the Rolex Miami OCR Regatta in January, this August the Stars’ sails will fill the Bay of Luebeck off Neustadt in Germany during Rolex Baltic Week (6th - 13th August).

“We are expecting around 85 boats from 20 nations, including all the top European teams,” says Torben Knappe, Regatta Director from the organizing club, Norddeutscher Regatta Verein Hamburg (NRV). ‘Spirit of the Stars’ - is the motto in anticipation of the current World Champions, Xavier Rohart/Pascal Rambeau from France, the former world title-holders Ian Percy/Steve Mitchell from Great Britain and newcomer Mateusz Kusznierewicz from Poland, a double Olympic Champion in the Finn Dinghy.

A maximum of eight races will be sailed from 7th - 12th August under the direction of Christian Haake (Berlin/Verein Seglerhaus am Wannsee), however the new Olympic format will not be adopted. “Our plan is to move to the new format this autumn after testing it at Kiel Week,” explains Alexander Hagen, European vice-president of the International Star Class Yacht Racing Association (ISCYRA). For 51-year old Hagen, the European Championships will be the peak of the season, since these are his home waters where Luebeck-born Hagen first set sail 41 years ago. His initial dislike of the Star, which he once described as the “boat for the elderly”, soon turned into a success story for the vintage motorbike enthusiast. Hagen has two World titles (1981 and 1997), three European Championship gold medals (1980, 1981, 1983) and two Olympic campaigns (1988 and 2004) under his belt. In 2005, the “veteran” once again proved his credentials by coming sixth at the European Championships.

Hagen targets a top 10 finish in August, a tough task given he has a new crew, medical student Sebastian Munk from Kiel, an experienced Finn Dinghy and Contender sailor. “We will sail our first regatta in April on Lake Alster near Hamburg,” explains Hagen. They will manage to fit in a few training days in Denmark and use the Northern District Championships during the Travemuende Week (21st - 30th July) as a dress rehearsal for the Europeans. Asked about his plans for the Olympics 2008, he leaves everything open: “I have no idea yet, we’ll see what happens.”

Marc Pickel and Ingo Borkowski are less vague about their target. The Kiel-based boat builder and the lawyer from Babelsberg near Berlin definitely want to take part in the Olympic regatta in Qingdao, and they have no intention of leaving this to chance. Borkowski, part of Jochen Schümann’s Silver Medal winning Soling crew at Sydney 2000, has secured a three-year leave of absence from his employer, the Brandenburg government. The financial side of their campaign is secured by the Willi Illbruck Racing Foundation. “Without this support, we couldn’t go ahead,” says family man Borkowski.

The pair only just missed the German Star berth at the 2004 Athens Olympics and is determined to succeed this time. The year has not started perfectly with a “somewhat bumpy” 29th place at the Rolex Miami OCR Regatta, confesses Borkowski, “but any other outcome would have really surprised us”. The two last sat together in a Star in May 2004. “We have a lot of catching up to do,” says the 34-year old, who does not see any problem in living quite some distance apart from his helmsman, Pickel. This year alone, they have scheduled up to 150 sailing days together. In between, they will work individually on their respective strength and stamina. In an effort to avoid missing any opportunity to face up against the world’s elite, at the end of February, they returned to Florida for the Bacardi Cup (5th - 10th March). “The high peak of our season will be the Worlds in San Francisco in early October. It is then that we want to prove that we are worthy of world class sailing,” says Borkowski. “The Europeans in the Bay of Luebeck (where he finished seventh in the Dragon at last year’s Worlds during the Rolex Baltic Week with Marc Pickel and Thomas Müller) are a very important milestone for us.”

The 2008 Olympics are also the target for Robert Stanjek (25) and his crew Frithjof Kleen (22). Like Pickel/Borkowski, the two Berlin-born sailors take a professional approach to their campaign, as they are part of the NRV Olympic Team. At the Rolex Miami OCR, though, the two youngsters finished a rather meagre 43rd. “We had to wait nine days for our boat to clear customs, then had to sail the first race with a chartered boat and spent half of the second night rigging our boat under floodlights. All this was reflected in the regatta results,” reports Stanjek, who had switched to the Olympic keelboat at the end of 2004 from the Laser (German Champion 2003). He has never regretted his decision to do so. “I’m one of the younger guys in this class, and this is an advantage that gives me steadiness.” Importantly, Stanjek and Kleen have found an experienced coach in Christian Rasmussen from Denmark. “He truly is a genius,” raves Stanjek. They plan for 100 joint training days this year. “Our focus is to improve on our speed. We have been sail training off Majorca, Spain, where we will stay until Easter and enjoy the perfect conditions”. The two sailing students - Stanjek is studying sports sciences at Humboldt University, Berlin and Kleen political sciences and philosophy in Rostock - have also headed across the pond for the Bacardi Cup. They will then gear up for the European Championships, “One of the two high points of our season, because we want to get into the A squad of the German Sailing Association”, adds Stanjek.

Information on the Star Class:
The two-hand keelboat was designed in 1911 by the Americans Wilhelm Gardner and Francis Sweisguth. The first boats were rigged with a steep gaff parallel to the mast. The international class association is the International Star Class Yacht Racing Association (ISCYRA). The Star boat is the longest-standing Olympic class (since 1932). More than 7,500 boats have been built of which around 2,000 are actively sailed. Worldwide, the class is divided into 21 districts, which are subdivided into fleets.

There are 23 fleets in Germany, with 149 boats registered. The F. Laeisz International German Championships (23rd to 28th May) on the Alster/Hamburg will be organized by the Luebeck and Hamburg fleets, which celebrate their 25th and 75th anniversary respectively.

Technical data:
Length-over-all: 6.922 m
Length at waterline: 4.72 m
Displacement: 671 kg
Draft: 1.02 m
Sail area: 27.92 m2
Mainsail: 20.5 m2
Mast length: 10.0 m

The Norddeutscher Regatta Verein (NRV) Hamburg will organize the third Rolex Baltic Week from August 6 to 13 in 2006. The event will encompass three different regattas - and once again it will take place on Luebeck Bay in Neustadt/Holstein on the Baltic Sea. This year’s highlights will be the IMS Offshore World Championships and the Star Class European Championships. The Rolex Baltic Week 2006 will again feature the Swan Race, a regatta exclusively for Nautor’s Swan yachts.

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