One of the more exotic teams on the entry list for the Flying Junior World Championships is a team competing for Mexico. But Gentry Yanic and Hermann Mergenthaler not only have their home country in common, they are also both Olympic athletes. They have been sailing Flying Junior together for a year now.
The two sailors met in Mexico through Mergenthaler’s son. Mergenthaler himself now lives in The Hague in the Netherlands. Gentry has lived in Hamburg for seven years, but competes for his home sailing club in Puerto Vallarta on the west coast of Mexico. The 62-year-old Hermann Mergenthaler took part in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles in the 470. Yanic Gentry (33) competed in the Laser in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
This is Gentry’s first time in Travemünde. Mergenthaler, on the other hand, has a lot in common with the Baltic seaside resort. He first competed in a regatta here 42 years ago. He had actually planned to return to the regatta in Travemünde together with his brother Eric, a successful Finn sailor who took part in the Olympic Games three times and won the class world championship title in 1992. A stroke of fate thwarted the plan to take part in Travemünde Week together: Eric Mergenthaler died in 2020 as a result of a cycling accident. Hermann Mergenthaler named his Flying Junior “Flying Joie de Vivre” in honour of his brother.
How did a Finn and a 470 sailor end up in the Flying Junior class? “I fell in love with the beautiful wooden boat at boot Düsseldorf last year and bought the wooden Flying Junior built by Galetti in 1969,” explains Mexican-born Hermann Mergenthaler. The Central American combination of two sailing generations is working well: after six races so far, Team Mexico is in seventh place among the 42 world championship teams.
With Gentry Yanic and Hermann Mergenthaler, two Olympic generations from Mexico are representing the colours of the Central American country at the Travemünde Week. Photo: segel-bilder.de
