Craig aims for record fourth OK Dinghy World title

'Nick Craig. Photo: Ania Pawlaczyk, 2007 Worlds' OKDIA.org &copy

Ask any OK Dinghy sailor what their favourite venue is and the answer from many of them will be Warnem?nde, in the east of Germany. Ask them why, and they will say because the water offers some of the best sailing conditions anywhere in the world, the onshore facilities are great, the people are friendly, the town is wonderful and the beer is plentiful.

Hence Warnem?nde was a particularly popular choice as the venue for the 46th OK Dinghy World Championships, scheduled to open next weekend. So far 89 sailors from Australia, Denmark, Great Britain, Germany, New Zealand, Poland and Sweden have entered for what promises to be a tough and hard fought for event.

Undoubtedly the three times and current World Champion, Nick Craig (GBR) is the favourite to take the title for a fourth year in a row. Craig is now regularly competing in four different classes, and he hasn't been able to put in the amount of time he wants to in order to fully prepare for this event. However he is certainly one of the fittest and strongest sailors in the international fleet and produces a level of consistency across a range of wind strengths that few other sailors can match.

Craig commented, 'As always, the competition in the OK fleet is one of the toughest of the year. The class attracts some great sailors from many different countries and this is one of the main attractions of the class to me. There are always new faces, as well as old ones and it makes for fantastic racing as well as an awesome social scene.' The current depth of the class was emphasized by Craig's uncharacteristic third place in the recently concluded Kiel Week.

However, if Craig manages to win for a fourth year running he will make history. Only one other person, Bo-Staffan Andersson (SWE), has won the title three years running and only two sailors have won the title four times, albeit not consecutively, (Andersson in 1988 and 1991- 93 and Leith Armit (NZL) in 1983, 1985, 1990 and 1994), but no one has yet won it four times running.

His main competition is likely to come from local favourite Karsten Hitz (GER). Twice a world champion himself, Hitz finished 4th in 2007 and has a new and largely untested German built hull. The German fleet is unsurprisingly the largest national contingent in Warnem?nde with 27 entries. Other likely contenders for the top 10 include Gunter Arndt who was 6th last year, Martin von Zimmermann the 2006 European Champion and Oliver Gronholz who was 10th last year.

Elsewhere the fleet is as deep as ever with Thomas Hansson-Mild (SWE) likely to perform well, after winning Kiel Week with a string of good finishes. In fact many sailors used Kiel as a warm up event for the worlds. Pawel Pawlaczyk (POL) produced one of his best ever performances, won a race and ended up second. Meanwhile J?rgen Lindhardtsen (DEN) is likely to put up a strong challenge, although he has been struggling with injuries for most of the year.

The expected conditions in Warnem?nde should produce more than a handful of wind and wave filled days and this is normally when the New Zealand and Australian teams are strongest. This year Mark Perrow (NZL) and Karl Purdie (NZL) are back again after finishing second and third in Leba last year. Purdie is sporting one of the new Icebreaker hulls, as are many of the Kiwis travelling to Germany. Andre Blasse (AUS), 9th last year, is also likely to pose a threat.

Apart from Craig, the British contingent will be looking for those elusive top ten places, and the highly sought after OKDIA ties that accompany them, with Terry Curtis (GBR) hoping to better his 11th last year and Jon Fish (GBR) just trying to put in a consistent performance without capsizing or making any other major mistakes, as he has been prone to do in the past.

There are also lots of new names on the entry list, so there could also be a few surprises at the top.

As usual the local organisers have arranged a full social programme that will include the official launch of the class's highly praised 50th anniversary book 'Completely OK', and several more inductees into the OK Dinghy 'Hall of Fame' at a special dinner and awards ceremony during the week.

The major regatta sponsor is Bombardier (www.bombardier.com), a world-leading plane and train manufacturer. Bombardier has generously covered the majority of costs for the social events, showers and camping.

Most of the fleet will begin gathering in Warnem?nde from Thursday 3rd July to take part in the three days of Warnem?nde Week before measurement of equipment takes place on Monday. The first race is scheduled for 11.00 on Tuesday 8th July. Ten races are scheduled between then and Saturday 12 July.

Class website: www.okdia.org
Event website: www.okworlds2008.org

Warnem?nde 2008 Photo: Christian Hartmann - OKDIA.org &copy

Entry List
AUS 641 Darren Hunt
AUS 692 Bill Tyler
AUS 695 David O'Donnell
AUS 708 Morgan Staley
AUS 716 Peter Wallace
AUS 724 Glenn Yates
AUS 725 David Ketteridge
AUS 726 Bob Buchanan
AUS 729 Andre Blasse
AUS 733 David Clancy
AUS 735 Robert Davis
DEN 1364 J?rgen Lindhardtsen
DEN 1304 Christian Midtgaard
DEN 1340 Christian Olesen
DEN 1361 Ren? Johannsen
DEN 1214 J?rgen Holm
DEN 1330 Troels Lykke
DEN 1346 Anders Andersen
GBR 2118 Terry Curtis
GBR 2105 Ian Harris
GBR 2126 Mike Edwards
GBR 2125 Neil Goodhead
GBR 2122 Jon Fish
GBR 2117 Alex Scoles
GBR 2085 Gavin Waldron
GBR 2121 Tony Rich
GBR 2084 Keith Byers
GBR 2129 Deryck Lovegrove
GBR 2104 Paul Pike
GBR 2107 Daren Prior
GBR 2012 Jake Cracknell
GBR 2127 Keith Dutton
GBR 2128 Ed Dutton
GBR 2119 Robert Deaves
GBR 2120 Dan Ager
GBR 2116 Nick Craig
GER 20 Hartmann Christian
GER 89 Reinhard Gra?mel
GER 539 Carsten Sa?
GER 577 Yves Kaminski
GER 590 Jan Wirbeleit
GER 606 Katharina Hu?
GER 645 Arne Lindemann
GER 659 Falk Hagemann
GER 665 Peter Stephan
GER 670 Hinnerk Ries
GER 671 Andreas Deubel
GER 672 Gunter Arndt
GER 688 Dirk Dame
GER 693 Martin von Zimmermann
GER 694 Gunnar Specht
GER 695 Erik Bork
GER 699 Juliane Hofmann
GER 714 Christian Hu?
GER 717 Oliver Gronholz
GER 718 Peter Scheuerl
GER 730 J?rg Rademacher
GER 731 Thomas Glas
GER 735 Dirk Gericke
GER 744 Karsten Hitz
GER 745 Rainer Pospiech
GER 747 Andreas Pich
GER 750 Ralf Tietje
NZL 532 Alistair Deaves
NZL 525 Steve McDowell
NZL511 Luke O`Connell
NZL 518 Grant Pedersen
NZL 527 Mark Perrow
NZL502 Trent Pryce
NZL 531 Karl Purdie
NZL 517 Matthew Steven
NZL 529 Mike Wilde
NZL 522 Greg Wilcox
POL Jerzy Bojanowski
POL Radek Drozdzik
POL Tomek Gaj
POL Marek Jarocki
POL Jakub Kania
POL Darek Kras
POL Pawel Pawlaczyk
POL Mieczyslaw Poplonyk
POL Piotr Przewozny
POL Bartek Rakocy
SWE 11 Bengt Str?mberg
SWE 66 Jan-Eric Nystedt
SWE 99 Hans Elkjaer
SWE 100 Thomas Hanson-Mild
SWE 2763 Jan-Erik Egholm
SWE Claes Ahlstr?m