Erik Heil and Thomas Plößel have already won a bronze medal in the 49er boat class in Rio. They want to at least repeat that in Tokyo – but also have other big issues in mind.
A dark-blond boy, maybe ten years old, is looking at Thomas Plößel’s T-shirt with sponsor logos on a landing stage on Hamburg’s Outer Alster. Then he asks: “Are you sailing the Olympics?”
“Yes,” replies Plößel.
“But I don’t know you,” says the boy.
“That doesn’t matter,” replies Plößel.
Anyone who is interested in sailing and is over ten years old should already know the crew and their helmsman. After all, the two won bronze in the 49er class at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro – and that is much longer.
49ers race through the water at speeds of up to 45 km / h
The fact that the two are so successful is also due to the fact that they have been sailing together since 2001. “At that time, a youth trainer from our Berlin sailing club put us in the same boat,” says Plößel, who, as the crew, mainly takes care of the smaller sail in front of the mast. In 2005 they became German youth champions together in the 420 and in 2009 U19 champions in the 470. They have been sailing since 2007.
Boats in this class are 4.99 meters long and 2.90 meters wide. A kind of wings are attached to the outside of the flat cut hull, on which the helmsman and the bowman support themselves with their feet while they stand in the trapeze. Strictly speaking, while sailing, they hang secured with wire ropes outside of their boat, while the boat speeds through the water at up to 45 km / h.
Erik Heil raves about “magical attraction”
“The boats have a magical attraction,” says Erik Heil. “49er sailing is fast and demanding, you need good teamwork and you have cool competition at a high level.” Most of all, it’s really fun. “It never gets boring,” says Plößel. Because the ship is over rigged – with 21 square meters, it actually has too much sail area for the size and weight of the boat – it is difficult to sail in a lot of wind.
To prepare for the Olympics, they toured southern Europe to train in areas that offer similar conditions to the bay in which the Olympic sailing regattas are held: high waves at a moderate pace and wind speeds of around 15 to 25 km / h . In addition, they were first in Cascais near Lisbon, then on Lanzarote and finally off Santander on the Spanish Atlantic coast. “We originally wanted to train in Japan from May, but Corona prevented that,” says Heil. While most of the teams sent their regatta boats on their way by shipping container in February, the two Germans took their top boat to Japan by air freight. This has the advantage that they were able to optimize their boat until shortly before departure.
Big goals for Tokyo 2021
But what goals do you set yourself after you’ve already won a bronze medal at the Olympics? “If we have a great regatta and someone was permanently better, even though we have already performed extremely well, then I would say: I am also satisfied with a bronze medal,” says Heil. “But if we sail a mediocre regatta and get silver and know: We should have been a little better in two races, we had it in our hands and therefore missed gold, then of course we are not satisfied.” But anything better than bronze would mean satisfaction first of all. “We have never been as close as we are to the high-flyer from New Zealand.”
Teamwork is critical to success. Plößel, who laughingly describes himself as an unpunctual perfectionist, and Heil, the more impatient with the overview, apparently complement each other very well. “We have a very detailed distribution of tasks on the boat,” says Heil, while the two of them drift more over the Alster than they sail in light wind and sunshine. He points to the joint that connects the tiller handle with the tiller extension – an extension made of aluminum or carbon. “Who is responsible for it? Probably me,” he says. “Who is responsible for these blocks? Probably Thomas,” he says, looking at a pulley for one of the ropes used to align the headsail.
There is still a medal for the sailors
Heil Plößel are in 5th place out of a total of 19 teams – while the “high-flyers” from New Zealand took the lead on Friday. On Saturday the 49ers sail another three races before the decisive race for the medals follows on Monday. All medal ranks are still there for the Germans.
But Heil und Plößel also think beyond the regatta track. “We are practically witnessing the global garbage problem on the water,” says Plößel. “Many people still underestimate the importance of the water ecosystem.” At the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, they would have seen how much ocean pollution would increase, especially with plastic. Especially since Heil had contracted infections with multi-resistant germs on his legs during the test regattas off Rio in 2015, which had to be scraped off in the hospital.
Commitment to plastic in the oceans
That is why the two sailors are committed to protecting the oceans, for example as sponsors of those who pay people in Asian countries to collect plastic before rain or wind carries it into the sea. “It’s much more efficient than fishing plastic waste out of the sea.” Every year, eleven million tons of plastic end up in the sea, “says Heil.” You can’t get them out, “says Plößel.” Or only with great effort. “
Saturday and Monday will decide whether the two sailors will reward each other for their training efforts on the water and on land. A medal in Tokyo would also be good for her goal of ensuring that sailing as a whole attracts more attention in Germany. Not only because then the next generation of sailors will immediately know who they are looking at.
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
