Flensburg, Germany - September 2006

 

Great Success for X-Yachts in the German IMS Championship

This year’s German IMS Championship took place in Flensburg Fjord during the Flensburg Week, in September 2006.
The weather was fine and sunny, but the wind conditions during the eight short inshore races were very tricky, ranging from light to medium heavy, caused by influences from the land around the fjord. The championship ended with an overnight 80 mile long-distance race, from Flensburg to the island of Lyö near the west coast of Fyn in Denmark; returning in warm easterly winds, under a wonderful starlit sky.

X-332 “No Limits” German Champion and X-332 “Chinook” 3rd in IMS Class 3/4
Lars and Sven Christensen’s X-332 “No Limits”, with X-Yachts Export Manager Torsten Bastiansen on board, dominated the IMS Class 3/4 from the beginning of the races; and won the championship for the third time, following on from their successes in 2004 and 2005. Now that they have sold “No Limits”, next year Lars and Sven Christensen and their crew will be on board Torsten Bastiansen’s brand-new X-35. In third place was John Friedrichsen’s X-332 “Chinook”, whose performance had improved remarkably during the year.

After the eight short inshore races, the X-332 Sport “patent 3” of Jürgen Klinghardt, led by only one point over X-Yachts dealer Oliver Leu’s X-37 “CG Mer”, whose performance developed impressively from race to race. At the beginning of the long-distance race in the Inner Flensburg Fjord, the X-37 “CG Mer” showed excellent speed, which put them increasingly further ahead of “patent 3”; so much that Oliver Leu and his crew believed they had already won the Championship. However, in the outer Flensburg Fjord, “patent 3” decided to make for the northern Danish coast; whereas all the other competitors, including “CG Mer”, sailed along the southern German coast, where the wind conditions were worse. This meant that “patent 3” regained the lead and eventually won the Championship, with a seven point margin over “CG Mer”.