Lukasz Przybytek with new crew Jacek Piasecki (POL) pulled into an eight point lead and are on the verge of their first victory at a grade one regatta since 2011. The Polish duo clashed with German rivals and Polish squad mates all week to score 7 top ten finishes from eight races to sit atop the leader board. Their second placed compatriots Dominik Buksak and Szymon Wierzbicki, are nine points behind. Canadians Arie Moffat and Ryan Wood moved up to third whilst the USA’s Andrew Mollerus and Ian Macdiarmid, overnight leaders, dropped to 10th after they compounded a 26th with a BFD disqualification in the last race of the day.
The depth of the 49er fleet is legendary, and one year out from Paris 2024 there are a dozen teams with eyes on the gold medal. Within the Polish fleet alone there are three teams who have eyes on Olympic glory.
While most of the Olympic hopefuls are in Marseilles preparing for the Test Event in early July, a 64 deep fleet is contesting Kiel Week 2023 including many top-quality teams. The regatta will conclude with a medal race Wednesday to decide the final finish order.
“The conditions were very tricky today, sometimes the right was good, sometimes the left, so it was all about getting good starts and reading the wind well. We made good starts. This has been a tough regatta as it has been all light winds, usually we have strong westerly winds but, hey, it has been the same for everyone.” Said helm Pryzbtek who has done more than ten Kiel Weeks and finished runner up here a couple of years ago.
In the Nacra 17 class, Italy’s Margharita Porri and Stefano Dezulian already have the Kiel Week title well within their grasp after winning all four races today to earn a 17 points lead going into the Medal Race but the young duo want to finish with a flourish, looking for a big victory in the double points finale in which they expect to see more wind than has been seen all week so far.
“We are so happy. The goal here was to do well but we did not ever expect to get all firsts today for example as the conditions were so tricky.” Smiled Porri who grew up racing on small lake outside of Milan. “Tomorrow my dream was actually to do more races as there should be more wind than we have had so far to understand better our speed as we have only had light winds. But the goal now is just to get another first in the medal race.” Porri has sailed many classes including the Open BIC, the RS Feva and the 29er in which she won the class here before, then Waszp, 49erFX and now the Nacra 17.
