2010 SAP 505 World Championship in Aarhus, Denmark

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Nicola Birkner / Angela Stenger in GER 9043, boat name "Bikini Atoll". Photo by Mick Anderson / Sailingpix.dk

Results are final as of 19:56 on August 5, 2010

Overall

505 World Championships win to fast Danes
by Dansk Sejlunion on 6 Aug 2010

SAP 505 World Championships in Aarhus, Denmark.

If you can�t win the regatta then perhaps winning the final race is the next best thing. That�s what Jan Saugmann and Morten Ramsb�k did today in the final heat in Aarhus, Denmark.

Sailing Aarhus

While new World Champions Wolfgang Hunger and Julien Kleiner had the luxury of packing up their boat a day early, the rest of the 126 competitors ventured out into a light-airs Bay of Aarhus for one last gate start, one final opportunity to move themselves up the rankings.

Early leaders of today�s race were the Americans who had led the regatta after day one, 1999 World Champion Howie Hamlin and Andy Zinn. Defending in such tricky conditions was tough, however, as Jorgen and Jacob Bojsen-M�ller took over the lead for a while. But it was the �Fast Danes�, so called because they�re fast, but also because it�s easier for foreigners to say rather than pronounce their names � Saugmann and Ramsb�k � who took the lead when it mattered, beating the Bojsen-M�ller brothers by a few metres.

Sailing Aarhus

Saugmann and Ramsb�k, the 2007 World Champions, had high hopes of winning on home waters and had trained extensively in Aarhus leading up to the Worlds. They were leading race one almost a week ago when gear failure put them out of action for heats one and two. It wasn�t until today when the two discards in the nine-race series kicked in, and their final heat victory shot them back up the rankings to sixth overall.

One place in front was Meike Schomaeker, the highest placed female competitor ever in the distinguished history of the 505 World Championship, crewed by three-time former World Champion Holger Jess. A third in today�s race cemented the Germans� fifth place in the overall standings. 'We are really pleased,' said Jess, 'and really happy that our training partners [Hunger and Kleiner] won overall. Our good boatspeed only came from our strong partnership in training.'

Hunger and Kleiner sailed at a level beyond any other competitor. Even Hunger himself couldn�t quite explain how he had made sense of such tricky conditions in the latter stages of the regatta. 'It was from watching things, the clouds, the other boats, but also from a feeling that I had, maybe an intuition,' he said. It seems the three-time 470 Olympian hasn�t lost any of the sharpness that brought him two 470 world titles, not to mention his three previous 505 world titles won with Jess in the front of the boat.

It has also been the most widely followed 505 championship ever, thanks to the live coverage delivered by a team in Aarhus, consisting primarily of volunteers and sailing enthusiasts.

Event organiser Thomas Capitani from Sailing Aarhus said visits to the website have increased day by day, with more than 37,000 unique viewers registering more than 125,000 page views, and with each visit lasting an average of 5 minutes 24 seconds. 'In television terms that equates to a very big commercial break, but what�s even more important is that this many people are spending more than five minutes at a time, watching and getting excited about sailing. In Aarhus, we have shown that with a relatively simple set-up, cheap equipment, you can do a great media job, and you can achieve high numbers of worldwide media coverage.'

Just as Aarhus� extensive use of GPS tracking software in the Volvo ISAF Youth Worlds two years ago has led to much wider uptake of tracking technology in sailing, Capitani hopes the 505 mashup experiment will also inspire others to take on similar media projects. 'We are doing it again in two weeks for the Danish National Youth and Junior Championships, with about 500 boats on five race courses, and next year we plan to do a similar job for the A-Class Catamaran World Championships.'

'What we did this week can be done anywhere, although we�re very fortunate to have a number of things working very well for us in Aarhus. We have 3G mobile coverage across all our race courses; we have strong partnerships with small companies such as StreamFactory and TracTrac, and the support of the Active Institute from the University and a City that wants to attract sailing events here on an ongoing basis.'

Rasmus Johnsen from the Active Institute has endured some long days keeping all the technology working, but has drawn his strength and motivation from the enthusiastic response around the world. 'It has been a very good week, but we don�t want to say this is the definitive way to do things. This has been an experiment in bringing sailing to a wider audience using affordable means, and we would love it if other people take the �Aarhus model� and develop it further for the benefit of the sport.'

Howard Hamlin / Andy Zinn in USA 8762. Photo by Mick Anderson / Sailingpix.dk

SAP 505 World Championships at Aarhus, Denmark � Day 5
by Andy Rice 3 Aug 2010

Jorgen and Jacob Bojsen-M�ller sailed a magnificent day in the most tactically challenging conditions yet seen at the SAP 505 World Championships, taking place in Aarhus, Denmark.

The Danish brothers needed to sail out of their skins if they were to stop the German team of Wolfgang Hunger and Julien Kleiner running away with the regatta. The Bojsen-M�llers scored a 2nd and 1st in light offshore breezes which were shifting up to 40 degrees from the north-west.

�It was a bit scary sailing today,� said Jorgen, �because the wind was very, very shifty. So I�m happy not to have done a bad race. At one point we thought Hunger had already won, but actually he is not there yet.� The Germans now sit on 12 points overall, after scoring a 5,2 today, with the Bojsen-M�llers now on 14 points. With two races to go, and with two discards from a nine-race series, Hunger cannot afford too many mistakes, although mistakes are not usually in his repertoire.

Having said that, the three-time 505 World Champion came back from some very deep positions � calling on all his experience to get himself back into contention. �We had some scary moments today,� said Hunger, �but we did some good work to recover from bad positions at the first mark, coming back from 25th to 5th in the first race, and then 17th up to 2nd in the other race.�

The biggest concern today for the series leaders was, surprisingly, a lack of speed out of the start, as Julien Kleiner explained. �We were fast downwind but our upwind performance was very poor. Still, we have been really enjoying sailing here. What�s really good is we have had two strong wind days, one medium day and one light wind day, so everyone gets a chance to sail in their favourite conditions. You definitely need to be an all-round sailor to do well in Aarhus, and fortunately we like sailing in all types of weather.�

Kleiner�s girlfriend, Meike Schomaeker, continued her progress up the fleet. Crewed by former 505 World Champion Holger Jess, she now sits in 5th place overall despite also complaining of a lack of upwind speed in today�s tricky conditions. Sitting ahead of her in 4th is 1999 World Champion from the USA, Howie Hamlin crewed by Andy Zinn, and continuing to lie in 3rd overall are former World Champions Ian Pinnell and Ian Mitchell from Great Britain. The Brits kept themselves in championship contention with a last-gasp race win in today�s first race, moving to within 5 points of Hunger, although a 17th in the next race has knocked them back again. Such is the points gap in front of and behind them, the Brits look destined to stay in the bronze medal position for the remainder of the regatta.

Certainly Hunger is beginning to view this championship as a match race against Bojsen-M�ller, who would dearly love to add the prize of a 505 world title to his trophy cabinet, which includes a gold and bronze Olympic medal from his days in the Flying Dutchman class. �In fact we already started match racing the Bojsen-M�llers on the previous day, and we will be looking closely for them for the next races,� said Hunger.

Will the superior upwind boatspeed of the Danish or the better downwind speed of the Germans be the deciding factor? Both teams have looked good across the wind range, so there isn�t much to separate them. �It�s good sailing here,� said the German. �Today the situation was shifty winds which was very difficult, but you have to deal with the winds that you get. Overall, across all the different winds we�ve had, we can be sure that the best sailor will win the week.�

The SAP 505 World Championship takes place in Aarhus, Denmark, from 30 July to 5 August. This regatta is the latest in a series of major sailing championships hosted by the City of Aarhus over the past 10 years, with the Volvo ISAF Youth Worlds having taken place here in 2008 and with a number of major championships scheduled in the near future, including the A-Class Catamaran Worlds in 2011.

The 2010 SAP 505 World Championship is organised by Sailing Aarhus in cooperation with Sport Event Denmark, Sport Aarhus Event and the Danish Sailing Association. With a strong focus on innovation and new technology to promote sailing to a wider audience, Denmark and the City of Aarhus are bidding for the ISAF Worlds 2014, the most prestigious regatta next to the Olympic Games.

Photo by Mick Anderson / Sailingpix.dk

Day one of the regatta was sailed in windy conditions with many break-downs (see photos).
126 competitors are competing for the World Championship trophy at the regatta which is held at Kaloe Vig Boat Club, just outside Aarhus, Denmark.
 

SAP 505 Worlds - Hamlin and Zinn survive a destructive day in Denmark
by Dansk Sejlunion on 31 Jul 2010

The SAP 505 World Championships have started with a bang in Aarhus, Denmark with the breeze gusting up to 30 knots. Too much of a bang for many of the 126 teams who struggled to complete two gruelling opening heats in this toughest of regattas.

Among the many casualties were some of the favourites for the world title. Gear failure forced the 2007 World Champions, Denmark�s Jan Saugmann and Morten Ramsb�k, to retire after they had been leading race one. Runner-up in last year�s Worlds, Mike Holt and Carl Smit of the USA, profited from the Danes� demise and moved into the lead, only to suffer their own set of breakdowns. They too, failed to complete either race.

Britain�s Ian Pinnell and Ian Mitchell, former world champions, took up the reins at the front of the pack and sailed a steady race to cross the line first, with USA�s Howie Hamlin and Andy Zinn in second.

In heat two, Hamlin and Zinn took up the lead for a good part of the race, with Germany�s three-time World Champion Wolfgang Hunger and Julian Kleiner in hot pursuit. Hunger attacked up the final beat and Hamlin failed to cover him as closely as he might have done, allowing the German crew to slip past for the winner�s gun.

Hamlin may not have won a race, but he�s leading the regatta after a tough day. He�s happy with that. Runner-up seven times and World Champion in 1999, the legend from Long Beach is competing at his 30th 505 World Championship. Today his experience showed. 'Perfect 505 conditions,' he smiled. While others were facing a long evening of boat work, Hamlin�s nine-year-old hull emerged from a tough day unscathed. Zinn looked ready for another two races. 'It wasn�t even that windy out there,' he said, an observation that few others would have agreed with. Even by the standards of a world 505 fleet, today was a tough one, with the 25-30 knot breeze combining with the waves to test the crews and equipment to breaking point.

Like the Americans, German team Stefan Bohm and Gerald Roos sailed very consistently to notch up two third places, one point ahead of Hunger/Kleiner. As for Saugmann, who has now used up both of the discards available in this nine-race series, he was philosophical more than upset. 'So many things went so wrong today, we have to laugh about it,' he said. 'First one of the trapeze rings broke, and then later in the race the spinnaker pulley at the top of the mast broke and the halyard snapped.' With the spinnaker falling in the water they sailed over the soggy sail and did well to avoid a capsize. They had hoped to regroup and get fixed in time for the second race. But when they came ashore they discovered the halyard had sawed its way about 30cm down the front face of the mast. So they have to replace the mast with a new one before tomorrow�s single scheduled race.

Mike Holt is paying the price for racing in a brand new, untested boat that he has borrowed for the Worlds. 'We had half an hour sailing in it yesterday,' he shrugged. 'The boat is fine, we were going fast today, but the fittings let us down, just not strong enough.' After a broken mainsheet ratchet made the boat much harder to sail, they finally had to retire from race one when the highly-loaded rig adjustment fittings pulled out of their anchor points in the boat.

Holt and Smit will be working hard tonight replacing equipment with bigger, heavier stuff that they can be confident will get them through the rest of the regatta. But Smit knew that today was the day that got away. 'Those were our conditions, just like sailing at home in San Francisco Bay,' he said. 'The breeze is meant to be dropping lighter in the next few days, so it�s going to be hard winning after what happened today.'

The war of attrition has begun. For those who aren�t working on fixing their boats this evening, they might get a chance to go back through all the tracking data and video footage from the race course today. Not that anyone needs to learn the lesson from such a brutal outing. If you keep your boat upright, and if you can keep your boat in one piece, then you�ll do well.

SAP 505 World Championship 2010 Christophe Favreau http://christophefavreau.photoshelter.com/

SAP 505 World Championship 2010 Christophe Favreau http://christophefavreau.photoshelter.com/

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