This year’s Kiel Week was marked by a variety of weather fronts that came rolling through, producing strong winds some days and light winds on others. Kieler YC had its hands full managing the fleets and getting in a full slate of races. The J/70s sailed six races of the scheduled 11 total. The biggest fleet of one-design keelboats at Kiel Week was the J/70s, with 43 boats registered to hit the starting line, virtually all German with a few Dutch crews. After starting out with a 27th, it was evident that Jens Marten’s crew on GER 1062 (Terje Klockemann, Justus Braatz and Tobias Strenge) figured out how to navigate the fleet and the race-track, posting a closing 1-3-2-1-1 to finish with just 8 points net and the title of Kiel Week J/70 champion. The most consistent team was Philipp Bruhns’ GER 252 team (Moritz Bruhns, Valentin Gebhardt and Sven Ruggesiek) from Bayerischer YC, posting a 3-9-1-6-14-4 for 23 points net to take the silver. Rounding off the podium just one point back was Bjorn Beilken’s GER 929 with crew of Alex Beilken, Tobias Teichmann and Jork Homeyer; their record was 31-10-2-4-3-5 for 24 points net. The balance of the top five included Gordon Nickel’s GER 797 in fourth and Martin Fahr’s GER 1011 in fifth place. For more Kiel Week information, visit http://www.kieler-woche.de/.