Artemis wins 5.5 Metre German Open with day to spare

With four race wins from seven races, Artemis (NOR 57, Kristian Nergaard, Johan Barne, Christen Horn Johannessen) has won the 2022 5.5 Metre German Open at the Robbe & Berking Sterling Cup at Flensburger Segel Club with a day to spare. New Moon II (BAH 24, Modern, Mark Holowesko, Christoph Burger, Peter Vlasov) and MF XXII (SUI 232, Modern, Jürg Menzi-Schmid, Jürgen Eiermann, Andreas Honegger) are in second and third place on equal points.

With Sunday's forecast looking doubtful, the race committee decided to run four races instead of three on Saturday, leaving just one to be sailed on Sunday. This means that Artemis cannot now be beaten for the title.

Saturday brought some pretty nice conditions to the Flensburg Fjord with 10-16 knots of warm wind and ample sunshine for an awesome day on the water.

New Moon II was firing all cylinders today winning the first two races. In the first race she had to pass MF XXII for the win, but in the next led at every mark.

They again led the third race, but Artemis found a way past to win, while New Moon II crossed in second to find they had been scored OCS. This left MF XXII in second and Bold Fox (GER 118, Modern, Thies Först, Geert Morf, Carsten Morf) in third.

In the final race, New Moon II again led at the top, but Artemis again came past, this time on the approach to the gate and led round the remaining legs to take a second win.

All the day the racing was exceptionally close with little room for mistakes, but the top three boats have built a sizeable gap on the rest of the fleet. While Artemis is assured the win, second and third are still to be decided.

Mark Holowesko, helm on New Moon II said, "We had a good first race, though we made a mistake not covering on the second beat but we were able to make it up on the downwind leg.

"So after good first two races, then an OCS in the third race. We knew someone was over but they didn't call numbers, so we had to give away a second place.

"All three top boats were very close today. We were very close to Kristian so good racing, good winds, good competition and pretty decent results despite the OCS."

Looking ahead to the worlds in just over a week he said, "We've done a lot of training this year. We've been training with the Norwegians in Nice. We had two sessions down there and had good boat speed relative to them. They are probably the top boat going into the worlds so we just have to keep our mistakes low and today and yesterday shows we can perform well if we don't make mistakes, so that's the goal. I think we'll be fine."

Felix Christiansen is sailing with his father on Criollo, arguably the most beautiful boat in the fleet.

"It was great today, but a but we had a bit of bad luck. We hit a tourist in the first race and then a buoy the next race so had to do some circles, but anyhow, it was great conditions. Everyone is having lot of fun I think and it's great to have the fleet here in Flensburg and looking forward to Hanko (world championship) now. This is a good tune-up and everyone is in great shape.

"Today was great racing and close racing. It came down to how you were handling the conditions, and it was quite tough at times; we have some long arms tonight. It wasn't us doing well, but still we had a lot of fun."

He took over as the president of Germany class association last year from the long standing, Kaspar Stubenrauch.

"Kaspar handled over to me last August and since then I have been receiving great support from him, so he hasn't really stepped down, still very active and gladly so. It was easy for me to get in because I had so much help from him. I think he has done it forever, but it's good fun and a great fleet so I like doing it."

Racing concludes on Sunday with one more race possible, though the forecast shows very light wind swinging around the compass.

Results after seven races
1 Artemis (NOR 57, Modern, Kristian Nergaard, Johan Barne, Christen Horn Johannessen) 9
2 New Moon II (BAH 24, Modern, Mark Holowesko, Christoph Burger, Peter Vlasov) 13
3 MF XXII (SUI 232, Modern, Jürg Menzi-Schmid, Jürgen Eiermann, Andreas Honegger) 13
4 Forza del destino (SUI 211, Modern, George Prapopoulos, Thomas Huber, Simon Pfändler) 32
5 Ali Baba (GER 84, Wolf-Eberhard Richter, Beata Kallkowski, Oliver Weiss) 36