The Match Race Germany 2013
On May 21st, twelve teams from ten countries will give the first go-ahead to the classic German duel sailing on Lake Constance. The field is led by world number four Eric Monnin and his Swiss team SailBox. Monnin's claim to leadership wants to compete with strong teams from Europe and overseas. THE PARTICIPANTS 1. Eric Monnin, 39, Stäfa / Switzerland, Team SailBox 2. Joachim Aschenbrenner, 21, Nivå / Denmark, Aschenbrenner Racing Team 3. Reuben Corbett, 27, Kerikeri / New Zealand, Corbett Racing 4. Tomislav Basic, 40, Split / Croatia, TB Race Team 5. Mark Lees, 23, Poole / Great Britain, GBR Match Racing 6. Przemyslaw Tarnacki, 37, Gdansk / Poland, EnergYacht Racing Team 7. Matthew Jerwood, 22, Perth / Australia, Redline Racing 8. Dejan Presen, 33, Ljubljana / Slovenia, LumbMatch Race Team 9. Christian Binder, 52, Schwechat / Austria, Flat Lake Sailing Team 10. Max Trippolt, 24, Bregenz / Austria, Trippolt Sailing Team 11. Tino Ellegast, 35, Konstanz / Germany, Team Ellegast 12. Tim Kröger, 50, Hamburg / Germany, New Wave by adidas Eric Monnin, 39, and his Swiss SailBox team start the races as favorites. But younger and older opponents from Europe and overseas will make it difficult for them. The Danish Aschenbrenner Racing Team and Reuben Corbett's Kiwi Crew have recently been sailing with a lot of upswing and are just as much aiming for the World Championship this year or next as the Swiss
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The Austrian and German teams, on the other hand, start as outsiders in the 18th edition of the Match Race Germany. However, all four teams show up with experienced lake sailors - they know the challenges that Lake Constance often holds in store for its athletes with light and twisting winds. Christian Binder called his team Flat Lake Sailing Team for a reason. The 52-year-old Austrian from Schwechat expects "tight and exciting races" and would like to wrest one point or another from the international professional teams. This also applies to the two German teams. The German match race champion Tino Ellegast from Konstanz and his team know the area, have little to lose in the professional field and have set themselves a correspondingly ambitious goal: "We want to be among the last eight teams."
Lake Constance connoisseurs and experts have also brought circumnavigator and America’s Cup professional Tim Kröger on board. The Hamburg native is not an expert on Lake Constance himself, although he has already spent happy sailing holidays with his family here, but the skipper from the North German RegattVerein has put together a crew from the student sailing club in Konstanz with the young German runner-up in the match race Knows the area well: Kröger's helmsman Felix Schrimper, 18, is the youngest in the field. The fellow sailors Johannes Voigt, Sebastian Uecker and Noel Beck are no older either. Skipper Kröger and the Lake Constance team want to "set the tone" together. Kröger says: "I'm really looking forward to this commitment, because I value the generational exchange in sailing as very profitable and would like to promote it as intensively as possible. Hopefully, my experience, mixed with the match race dynamics of the guys around Felix, will be some good and surprising ones Synergy effects result. And then we hope for the legendary audience at Lake Constance. It could be our sixth man … "Schrimper also wants a revenge for the defeat against Tino Ellegast, 17 years older than him, to whom he lost at the 2014 German Match Race Championship, says with a wink: "We'd really like to beat Team Ellegast."
The Match Race Germany is sailing for 30,000 euros in prize money and valuable points for the evaluation of the World Match Racing Tour, at the end of the season the world championship title is traditionally awarded in November in Malaysia.
With the start of the preliminary round, the large and lively regatta village in Langenargener Gondelhafen with its many attractions for large and small sea and sea people will also open its gates on May 21. The sailing festival can begin and will strive towards its climax over Pentecost: After the preliminary round, quarter-finals and semi-finals, the German Grand Prix will take place on Whit Monday.