Bavaria Charity Cup
- José Carreras and TV stars on yacht race with cancer survivors

09/08/2012

The stage was set with sunny skies, blue sea, favourable wind and fantastic sailing yachts. For five days, Christoph M. Ohrt, Dieter Landuris, Eva Habermann and Johannes Brandrup took part in the José Carreras International Yacht Race, competing for the Bavaria Charity Cup. Clearly moved, the Spanish star tenor took part himself on the last day.

Adopting the Olympic spirit
Ten German TV stars sailed in the Bay of Palma de Majorca in the José Carreras International Yacht Race. They were vying for the Bavaria Charity Cup and gained fifth, sixth and eighth place. The yacht race was held for the first time as part of German TV channel ARD's José Carreras Gala and commenced on 29 July with a short leg. “We’ve put in some hard work and are excited about our first regatta. We're adopting the Olympic spirit and hoping to just do our best”, explains Christoph M. Ohrt. The actor set out on one of the German yacht builder’s Bavaria Cruiser 50s and managed fourth place after four days of sailing.

Thorough sailing training for celebrities
Back in April this year, the celebrities underwent thorough training in theory and practical experience at the Spanish branch of Bavaria. Now they had to demonstrate the skills they had learnt, competing with experienced crews in ten other yachts. But charity was everyone's key focus. José Carreras and all regatta participants paid particular attention to a yacht crewed by leukaemia survivors. Germany’s biggest yacht builder Bavaria provided the German José Carreras Leukaemia Foundation with a 15-metre sailing yacht and a professional skipper and invited five former leukaemia patients to take part in the regatta.

Leukaemia survivors win fourth place
Gabriele Kröner, director of the German Carreras Foundation comments: “This is an exceptional event and a new dimension to the work our foundation does. It's very rewarding for me to see cancer survivors taking part in a regatta for four days on a sailing yacht and really enjoying the fact that they’ve got their lives back". But the cancer survivors did not just want to recover from the stress and strain caused by their illness, or simply discuss their fight against leukaemia which can return again at any point. They wanted to set sail and win the regatta. In the end, they and their skipper Lars Liewald managed a respectable fourth place, beaten by three experienced teams.

José Carreras started off the race
The regatta involved several short legs in the Bay of Palma de Majorca. It also covered Cabrera Island (a nature reserve) where a surprise birthday party was held for Marcus Grüsser (a German TV personality). “Fantastic – it was the best birthday of my life. Shortly before midnight, the dinghies belonging to all the yachts suddenly headed for us and I thought it was the harbour police”. Grüsser and his wife Jessica Boers clinched eighth place on a Bavaria Cruiser 36. The highlight of the last day of the regatta was José Carreras who started off the race. The star tenor was clearly moved by the hard work put in by all the sailing crews. “I love Majorca and I'm grateful and very moved that many people who were initially strangers were prepared to spend four days at sea. The common denominator was the fight against cancer and the desire to support us in fighting leukaemia by holding this wonderful yacht race”.

Regatta for all classes of sailing boats
At the awards ceremony, Dieter Landuris enthusiastically comments: “As an actor it's great to make a small contribution to José and his Foundation’s fantastic work and have so much fun with so many wonderful people at the same time”. The Bavaria Charity Cup is a regatta for all classes of sailing boats. As the initiator and organiser of the Charity Cup, Bavaria’s goal is to support charitable foundations and organisations. As Germany's biggest yacht builder, it is pushing the boat out to promote the spirit of charity.

Source: bavaria-yachtbau.de


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