From the AC40 to the 44Cup, Luise Wanser

With the Wow! team from Turkey joining the 44Cup for our event out of Nanny Cay this week, so we have a fresh influx of crew to the 44Cup. While in addition to owner-driver Mehmet Taki, the Wow! crew is largely Turkish, there is a strong contingent of Italians, a Spanish tactician in 49er double Olympic gold medallist and round the world race skipper Iker Martinez. There is also a German in Luise Wanser. 

Having coming back down to earth, or water level at least, after competing in this summer’s Puig Women’s America’s Cup in Barcelona with the German team on the flying AC40s, Wanser is enjoying two firsts this week – visiting the British Virgin Islands and the magnificent sailing area that is Sir Francis Drake Channel and sailing an RC44 for the first time on Wow! 

“Iker called and asked me if I wanted to do it and how much I weighed (because there is a weight limit on these boats),” she says with her characteristic enthusiasm of how she comes to be here. “For me, it is such a privilege to sail with Iker and Mehmet the owner and the team on this boat. We arrived here three days before the competition to start training and today was the first racing day. It was SO exciting with three races and we smashed it! It is nice to be in the game, in tough situations. Every boat that we pass on an upwind or downwind leg is a massive win for us.”

Aside from her AC40 experience, Wiesner is best known as a 470 Olympian having finished sixth in Tokyo with Anastasiya Winkel (behind Tina Mrak, who races on Team Ceeref Vaider), then forming a mixed crew with Philipp Autenrieth and winning the 470 Worlds in 2022. She has also spent time on the 52 Super Series racing with Quantum and Platoon.

So what is her impression of 44Cup racing? “The boat is super exciting - it is full on, everyone has a big responsibility. In every manoeuvre we are crossing our fingers, but we’re making big improvements daily. Obviously we have made a few mistakes but I really like that it is all on and everyone has a big task.”

Wiesner is in the floater role on board Wow! which means “I am doing everything. I help in the starts, I help Iker a little bit with strategy and upwind I help the main trimmer with grinding and pulling out the ropes and in the hoists and drops….I help everywhere wherever I can.”

She enjoys the closeness of the racing and that the RC44, like the 470, is a one design: “That makes the racing very close, which is what I love and is where I come from. The racing was fantastic.”

She is also finding a lot of friendly faces from the 470 including many past world champions and Olympic gold medallists such as Will Ryan and in particular Spain’s Jordi Calafat. “He is such an icon for me. And there’s Nic Asher [2x 470 World Champion and the present 44Cup leading tactician on Team Nika). “The quality of the whole fleet of sailors here is the highest you can get.”

She is pleased with the rule of the RC44 class that encourages teams to recruit female crew but says there is still a long way to go for women in sailing. “Female sailors shouldn’t be on the boat because they have to take a girl. They bring an actual advantage to the team, the team dynamic is way different when there is a girl on board and for the better. There are so many amazing female sailors and we have so much knowledge. I hope to see more girls sailing on big boats.”

At present it is much harder for women to follow a career as a professional sailor which is why she has a second career path as a lawyer, trained up to date in German law and hopes in the future to qualify in the USA. “I hope that we set the path for the next generation of female sailors so that they can have the  future.”

We watch with interest how Wow! performs in what is their first, and hopefully not their last 44Cup regatta.