DM 1999 Hornbæk
The Open Danish Championship was sailed the 13-15 of August in Hornbaek. in coorporation with the 5 0 5 class. We had 21 entries or 4 less than last year, but they represented 5 countries this year namely Norway, Sweden, Germany Holland and Denmark.
Daddy Cool (Jorgen Lindhartsen) did not defend his title, as he spend the Week-End at the OK Worlds, were he won a silver medal. Most of us got a reminder of the real world on Thursday the 12. when 6 sailers unpacked new “hard” sails from Sobstad and we also saw a couple of new wing and stiffer masts, and this Championship will therefore be remembered as the Week -End, when the “space age” came to Denmark.
Fridays racing was held in 3-4 m/s, with choppy seas. The first start vent well, and Poul Jan Petersen who has been away from the class for nearly 30 years found himself in front of the pack at the first mark, he did however go for the 505 buttom mark , and he never really regained his confidence after loosing 12 positions in no time. Lasse Showed some of his old boat speed and got 2 first and a second under his belt on the first day, while Henk de Jager improved from a third to second to first.
Saturday was sailed in fresh 6-8 m/s with relative larger waves, which suited Lasse perfectly, and he won all 3 races on the day, Henk had a hard day with a 4. a 3. and 6, but we later found out,that he and a couple of 505 sailers had spend most of the night on a local bar, and he won that. Michael Baek had slowly worked his way up and was nearly tied for the second with Henk before the last day, and both of them had to perform their best as they both had used their throwouts ( 6 and 8). Bo Svendsmark did round one of the marks so close, that the goose neck pin caught the net around the mark and he could not get free, that resultet in a spetacular capsize, and the boat nearly sank. Lars Petter soon realised that Bo could not make it on his own, and he therefore capsized his own boat and swam to the rescue, he was later named man of the day for the feat.
We had a good dinner and big party Saterday evening, and the Drinking, and girl chasing competition was once again won by the happy Dutchman.
The weather changed during the night, and we all had to awai a weathersystem to go through Sunday morning, and the start was therefore delayed for app 1½ hour. We finally got away with a strong following current, which pushed several boats over the line before the gun. The current was strongest on the right side, and Jens Christian Andersen, Richard Berg-Larsen and Børge Schwarz rounded 1, 2 and 3. Michael Bæk sailed a very good downwind leg and worked his way up from fourth to second at the bottum mark. and he could have secured the silver, but on the next beat when the front 4 or 5 could lay up the top mark they realised that the wind shifted and we suddenly found Henk and Lasse in front, and that race did in fact decide who got the silver. The last race was sailed in ever increasing wind, and Lasse and Richard Berg-Larsen rounded the first mark way ahead of the pack, Lasse made it to no surprise all the way, while it was a struggle for Richard to hold on to a third at the end just beaten by Lars Petter from Norway.
The race ended with thunder, lightning, waterspouts, which are very rare on these latitutes and heavy rain while sailing back to the Hornbaek.