Leg 3 - Ustka - Łeba, 25.07.2008

The third day of the Enea Baltic Sailing Cup 2008 confirmed that it is a very tough and demanding race. Another day of strong and gusty NE winds kept on nagging the crews hard. Out of the 10 crews that left the beach in Ustka, only 6 reached the finish line. In such hard conditions the Dutch world champions showed their class again, and again finished on the first position.

Meanwhile, after the start from Ustka, as the time passed by next teams fell out of the race. The Swiss team Mark Roempler / Michael Hilger had very serious problems with the front beam connecting the hulls during a back-breaking beating in tough waves and gusty winds and had to withdraw from the competition.

The weather conditions did not help the team of Seweryn Krajewski / Maciej Lunitz. The trapeze on their Eagle 20 broke off, and the helmsman, Seweryn Krajewski went overboard. During the search his crewman capsized the catamaran, fortunately so close, that Krajewski managed to swim to him. They managed to put the catamaran up together, however regardless of many tries Krajewski was not able to climb up. In this situation his crewman had no choice than to call the rescuers securing the race for help. This meant of course disqualification from the leg.

Very difficult conditions excluded from today's competition also two other Polish teams. The mast broke down on Arkadiusz Piernicki's and Łukasz Janusz's Tornado. Wojciech Kaliski and Tymoteusz Bendyk capsized, suffered broken mainsail battens and a lot of small damages to the yacht.

Only six teams reached the beach in Łeba, where the offshore part of the race finished, and were accounted for in this leg. The first place was again taken by the Dutch team Coen de Koning / Jeroen van Leeuwen who strenghtened their position as the race leaders. The second place went to Jacek Noetzel / Marcin Strzyżewski and third to Piotr Kowalewski / Maciej Kłosowicz.

The awards ceremony followed and afterwards all the catamarans and teams made their way by land to Szczecin, where a serie of in-town races will be held on Sunday.

General classification after leg 3:
1. Coen de Koning / Jeroen van Leeuwen - 3 pts
2. Jacek Noetzel / Marcin Strzyżewski - 8 pts
3. Piotr Kowalewski /Maciej Kłosowicz - 9 pts
4. Adam Skomski / Jakub Kopyłowicz- 10 pts
5. Piotr Cichocki /Ewa Górska - 19 pts
6. Heiner Wolfshoefer / Manuel Vaccari - 25 pts
7. Mark Roempel / Michael Hilger - 33 pts
8. Seweryn Krajewski / Maciej Lunitz - 34 pts
9. Piotr Baryżewski / Michał Kraskowski - 35 pts
10. Arek Piernicki / Łukasz Janusz - 38 pts
11. Robert Wilczynski / Tomasz Morawski - 40 pts
12. Sebastian Zarzeczański / Marcin Sołtysiak - 41 pts
13. Wojtek Kaliski /Tymoteusz Bendyk - 42 pts
14. Janusz Kacprzak / Marek Boroń - 48 pts
15. Jarosław Korzec / Bronisław Korzec - 49 pts
16. Piotr Chomicz / Waldemar Wieczorek - 51 pts

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