2006 European Championship
Mon Aug 7th 2006 through Sat Aug 12th 2006
ISCYRA

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Comments: The Regatta will take place on Neustadt/Luebeck Bay during the Rolex Baltic Week 2006. It will be based at Ancora Marina (See maps below)

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Entry deadline - 17 July 2006, Races 1 - 6 are August 7 - 12

Container transport form: for transportation from 2006 European,Championship in Neustadt to the 2006 World Championship in San Francisco.

Star European Championship 2006 will be sailed in the Bay of Luebeck off Neustadt in Holstein, Germany during Rolex Baltic Week from 6-13 August.

'We are expecting around 85 boats from 20 nations, including all the top European teams,' says Torben Knappe, regatta director from the organizing club, Norddeutscher Regatta Verein Hamburg (NRV). 'Spirit of the Stars' - is the motto in anticipation of the Championship. A maximum of eight races will be sailed from 7-12 August under the direction of Christian Haake, however the new Olympic Format will not be adopted. 'Our plan is to move to the new format this autumn after testing it at Kiel Week,' explains Alexander Hagen, European Vice-President of the International Star Class Yacht Racing Association (ISCYRA).

For 51 year old Hagen, the European Championship will be the peak of the season, since these are his home waters where Luebeck-born Hagen first set sail 41 years ago. His initial dislike of the Star, which he once described as the 'boat for the elderly', soon turned into a success story for the vintage motorbike enthusiast. Hagen has two World titles (1981 and 1997), three European Championship gold medals (1980, 1981, 1983) and has two Olympic campaigns (1988 and 2004) under his belt. In 2005, the 'veteran' once again proved his credentials by coming sixth at the European Championships.

Hagen targets a top ten finish in August, a tough task given he has a new crew, medical student Sebastian Munk from Kiel, an experienced Finn and Contender sailor. 'We will sail our first regatta in April on Lake Alster near Hamburg,' explains Hagen. They will manage to fit in a few training days in Denmark and use the Northern District Championships during the Travemuende Week (21-30 July) as a dress rehearsal for the Europeans. idea yet, we'll see what happens.'

Germans Marc Pickel and Ingo Borkowski (GER), a Kiel-based boat builder and a lawyer from Babelsberg near Berlin, are also sailing. Borkowski, part of Jochen Schuemann’s (GER) silver medal winning Soling crew at Sydney 2000, has secured a three-year leave of absence from his employer, the Brandenburg government. The financial side of their campaign is secured by the Willi Illbruck Racing Foundation. 'Without this support, we couldn't go ahead,' says Borkowski.

The pair only just missed the German Star berth for Athens and are determined to succeed this time. The year has not started perfectly with a 'somewhat bumpy' 29th place at the Rolex Miami OCR, confesses Borkowski, 'But any other outcome would have really surprised us.'

'We have a lot of catching up to do,' says the 34 year old, who does not see any problem in living quite some distance apart from his helmsman, Pickel. This year alone, they have scheduled up to 150 sailing days together. “The high peak of our season will be the Worlds in San Francisco in early October. It is then that we want to prove that we are worthy of world class sailing,' says Borkowski. 'The Europeans in the Bay of Luebeck [where he finished seventh in the Dragon at last year's Worlds during the Rolex Baltic Week with Pickel and Thomas Müller] are a very important milestone for us.'

Also sailing are 25 year old Robert Stanjek and his 22 year old crew Frithjof Kleen (GER). Like PICKEL and BORKOWSKI, the two Berlin-born sailors are part of the Norddeutscher Regatta Verein Olympic Team. At the Rolex Miami OCR, though, the two youngsters finished a rather meagre 43rd.

'We had to wait nine days for our boat to clear customs, then had to sail the first race with a chartered boat and spent half of the second night rigging our boat under floodlights. All this was reflected in the regatta results,' reports Stanjek, who had switched to the Star at the end of 2004 from the Laser, where he was German Champion in 2003.

He has never regretted his decision to do so. 'I'm one of the younger guys in this class, and this is an advantage that gives me steadiness.' Importantly, Stanjek and Kleen have found an experienced coach in Christian Rasmussen from Denmark. 'He truly is a genius,' raves Stanjek.

They plan for 100 joint training days this year. 'Our focus is to improve on our speed. We have been sail training off Majorca, Spain, where we will stay until Easter and enjoy the perfect conditions.' The two sailors are students - Stanjek is studying sports sciences at Humboldt University, Berlin and Kleen political sciences and philosophy in Rostock.

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