Stormy Weather - one for the Windsurfers...

Yesterday night in bed, when I read the latest issue of the German Yacht Magazine, I came across an article about classic yachts and how they should be transformed into practicale boats today. Restoration projects like the classic "J" boats, new building projects from the same rule and smaller yachts of course. One particular boat got my interest. "Stormy Weather". Haven´I seen this one in the Med last December when participating in the regatta in Antibes? Are there two examples of "Stormies" now, this well known cruiser/racer from the famous S & S design board? I will try to find out.

Anyway, "Stormy Weather" is what we had last weekend. Instead of practising with the Bladerider, where I have a clear goal of not becoming last boat at their class championship mid of October, I skipped the idea of breaking gear within 20sec after launching the boat. Not going out on the water was also not a good idea and I unpacked my good old slalom gear ("no whips and chains, buy slalom gear" - as Ken Winner once said in the early eighties) which was stowed away for two consecutive summers. The board being a 2,65 slalom from Litewave, Cornwall and the sails are Simmer Style. I took the 4,7 which was a handful in the strong gusts channeling down the Schlei at the "narrow" in front of my lawn. But is was all fun. The power jibes went smooth and smoother even with wind from the right side, which normally and in the old days at our favourite spots came from the left. I thought myself that this is like riding a bike. Once you are able to manage it, you do not forget it. But you loose power, stamina and physical strength for this sport if you are not practising it. 2 sessions went very well, in the second one: "I did not even got my hair wet". After another pause, I met a neighbor whom´s son is into windsurfing and whom had gone to a different spot in the morning. We discussed a little bit and he wanted to see me doing it. At least this is what I felt during our discussion. The wind had dropped a bit and there were holes. Still above 4 Bft but my board being a non volume board (sinker) and even sinking deeper in fresh water other than salt water and my sail was fully battened and "small". But I did the mistake of not trusting my gut feeling. I went out. Did well on the first leg, jibed well, catched a wave, lot´s of speed and than in the middle of the playing field the wind dropped and I sank. Had to swim in all the way with my gear. Not once getting back up on the board. Had to carry the gear a long way home. Felt the tired muscles and bones all through Sunday. A good day out but tiresome.

Taking Off...

Just wanted to check the weather via the homepage of my local sailing club, Schlei-Segel-Club, who have a good link to the local weather station. Uhhps, I came across some nice shots of myself on the Bladerider. Someone must have taken these during my last Bladerider practice session. They named it: " Abgehoben" which could be translated into "taking off". Hompepage Schlei Segel Club And YEAH! that´s what I want to do today after doing some homework around the house. Sun is shinning, Bft. 4 at present, gusting from the north, but later shifting into the west. See you out there!

Moth Adventures

Blogging had been quiet at the Moth front with our Bladerider, though it seems that at present I am the only one to put energy into getting some hours on the boat, GER-3170, lately. Let me sum up the last adventures. The picture shows me on my first day out. Style has improved a lot since than... ;-))

Last week on Wednesday evening there appeared a good chance for sailing though it was already around 18.00h but the breeze was cooperating. Nice 8-10kn of wind on my homewater (if there is such). I blasted around on foils, "impressing" my sailing friends who were doing the "beer can race". Lot´s of fun. Big grin. Of course I tried to sail the race as well but did not want to get into their way as capsizing the Moth is still happening in the worst moments with me. There had been a Europe dinghy and a Formula Board in the fleet of normally X-99s, X-79s, H-boats, Folkboats and others. Going to windward, not as high as the bigger boats and falling into their wind shadows did hurt. Capsizing of course. I avoided the crowded mark rounding and tried to set myself up for a nice downwind run. Got flying but could not make good VMG to leeward. Lowrider jibing still critical and afterwards nearly going into the wind to get flying did not help either. The Formula Board was long gone as well as the fleet under spinnaker. Some lulls cost me more distance and I was neck to neck with the Europe. The wind had dropped and I could not even sail as low and fast as young Adrian did. My lowriding ability not being good enough to match him. I stayed off the race course got back were there was more wind due to the impacting effect on the narrow and blasted around on foils. 16-18kn on the Velocitek not being a problem. Practising my downwind skills.

I went out again on the Thursday full of energy from the day before but it was windy and shifty, wind from the North over the narrow and the fun factor was nearly down to zero. I am not yet able to handle the gusts. I limped home, my ego was broken for the evening due to the many capsizes.

Wednesday evening this week I gave it another try. Fully motivated it was a nice evening out there with some tacks and jibes but all maneuvers need much, much more improvement. I am very grateful for the tips from Koos ( http://internationalmoth.wordpress.com/) as usual. He writes it up in such a nice way. I wasn´t ready to cope with the downwind speed of the beer can racers again as I did not get the BR flying in the dying evening breeze. With maybe 20kg less weight it could have been possible but than, being 190cm tall, I already have to watch to keep a certain weight instead of loosing more. Nevertheless in the narrow I met with my regular Bull crew, Jan, who was sailing his 14 (footer dinghy) and there were times when I could cope with his upwind speed, just about. But it got late already, the breeze died and I had to sail home. Downwind it was another slow go. I undid the wand to increase speed a bit. Being alone at the club and wanting to take the daggerboard out of the boat it was impossible. Really impossible. Some sand must have got in between the very narrow and fitting box. I had to strip the rig from the boat in the water and had to carry the boat with centerboard/foil ashore, where I laid it upside down on the cover into the club. It was getting dark and I had promised to do some household work before going out sailing. Bloody me. Lot´s of water and wash lotion helped me to get the board out next day and I can only recommend to wash or splash water into the slot before attaching the boards. As with any dinghy...I know! Stupid me.

Yesterday I went out again for an hour of nice foiling. I met the youngsters in their 29ers and could match their speed up-and downwind, as long as I was able to foil. Nice! My shoulder gave me problems after some tough hiking (why the shoulder?) and Veel-heel but it was another "happy" evening. The youngsters wanted to give the BR a try but due to the maintenance work which has to be done afterwards, especially when newbies are sailing the boat and maybe hitting some underwater object in the area, I am not fond of this idea at present. It might change with time. Thinking back, nobody had ever let me have a go e.g. on his DN iceboat or his FD and I had to work hard to buy myself into it in my mid twenties. Times have changed and these 17 years old, sailing a club 29er, are just used to ask for (and get?) everything and I hope that they are also used to accept a NO.

25. Schifffahrtsregatta - what an event!

The Schifffahrtsregatta had been sailed for the 25th time this year and the organisers promised a unique event to celebrate not only the anniversary but also Peter Gast, the founder and organiser of this private event. Yes a private event, not organized by a sailing club or other organisation but by Peter Gast and his employees in his shipping company. It is supposed to be a friendly event between people working in shipping and banking. The entry list reads like the international "who is who" in shipping and ship financing. People from 15 nations took part as far away as from China. The regatta is held annually at the first weekend in September and the waiting list for participants is long. This year the promoters allowed 140 yachts to take part. Famous German Racing Yachts like "Outsider", UCA and others came to sail and celebrate. In the evening abt 1450 people, all dressed up in dark jackets, many with the odd Cowes trousers took part in the traditional walk through the village of Aeroskøbing on the beautiful island of Åro in the south of Denmark.

The evening before the start usually sees big parties in various locations along the banks of the Schlei. Kappeln and Maasholm are in the center of action and the marinas are fully packed with all the beautiful yachts, ranging from many Swans to X-Yachts, Dehler, HANSE, Baltic and other manufacturers who have cruiser/racers in their program. This time there was also a "classic division" as some ship owners keep beautiful classics on the water.

Nevertheless all the partying and get together for people from the same trade usually finds an end on the Friday night around midnight as the regatta, which usually is around 30sm, can be strenuous. And the first start takes place exactly at 09.00h out on the Baltic Sea with a short windward leg and than around some buoys or markers. I wanted to track the course to show you here (and to learn how to do it in Google Earth) but forgot at home to change the "road" chip into the "sea" chip in my Garmin GPS. It was our turn in the IMS group B to have the third start. With four guests on board we were a bit overloaded on the 36 footer with eight people and Kerstin had a handful to organize them. We managed the start quite well but I lost track about my strategic plan. Wanted to tack early as the course was not laid even but got sucked behind a bigger Swan who sailed us out to the left, overstanding the mark by "miles". A tight reach with a 110 percent Jib is not the best course, though we do a lot of barberhauling (out) but boats with big headsails have a clear advantage. Our goal was set on beating a friend on his much modified Swan 48, usually the winner in this IMS class. Whilst he and others sailed a leebow, (?) we tried to catch more breeze with a windward curve and managed to stay not too far away from the leaders in our group. A 6sm upwind put us back into contact and than a long reach with some dying breeze. We hoisted our Code Zero sail which works nice from 45° to 90° apparent wind and were able to pass the Swan and came very close to a nice 40 footer were an old rival of mine from the H-Boat times did sail on.

The wind shifted to the right, we had to hoist the Jib and by barberhauling it we broke the Frederiksen car off from the track. I haven´t seen this before on any boat but two strong guys winching the ropes in managed it. Oh dear, I should have given better and more precise instructions. The provisional repair involved three people on the foredeck with different meanings about how to do it and at the end our 40 footer friends had done a horizon job on us. The repair could not be made on board and we rigged some lines to just pull in the sheet a bit. At the next turning point we could hoist the spinnaker and tried to get some meters back which was rather difficult. We were only able to etch away from the Swan due to finding better pressure closer to the shore. at the end we only managed an 11th out of 14 boats. Results can be found on: http://www.svaoe.de/Archiv2007/schifffahrtsregatta.html. My boat is still "Samantha" the Dehler 36db though my charter had put his name in as skipper. He is the one who brings in the invitation to this much admired regatta.

The party in the evening was outstanding. Illuminated tents, fine dishes and Food, Drinks, Speeches, the various Video clips from past and present, the Music, the Fireworks and the atmosphere. Can you imagine that the organisers had to bring 28 trucksloads to the Danish island where the reguar ferry can only carry three 35ts trucks at a time. All this let you forget that you said to yourself in the moments of trouble and braking parts on your own boat: never again on my boat.

The next day the wind had increased to Bft 6-7 right in the eye and it was a long way home against the wind. Starting with full main we ended up in second reef, all people on board a bit wet and tired but happy from a great weekend. See you again at Schifffahrtsregatta 2008.

Picture 1 shows us leaving the harbour of Åroskøbing. Pic 2 the procession of boats out of the Schlei--Fjord and Pic 3 the tugboat changed into regatta duties.

Der Durchbruch - Foilen statt heulen

The breakthrough:
I had my best foiling evening yesterday from 18.30h - 20.30h. Than the wind dropped and with Koos (Flying a Moth for starters ) tipp of releasing the wand I got home nicely. It was kind of a breakthrough for me yesterday. Undisturbed airtime, less capzising, a lot of fun. Going downwind: BIG fun. upwind: Lot´s to learn. Trying the "Veal-heel": I am splashing into the water on the windward site but get back into the boat better than before.

Conclusion:
Due to the damaged swivel which might not have hold the wand into place (angle wise) the boat felt sticky and did not want to fly the days before. Thus not much learning. Now with my new (self made, see photo) carbon swivel the boat feels like new. A pity, I did not measure wind, nor GPS speed yesterday.
Never swim around the bow, you might damage the wand mechanism.

Elbows and knees need better protection. Hurts a lot today. Maybe I should sand the deck a little bit.

Deutschland Cup X-79

The first real regatta this year. Kind of a German Championship for this "old" class of boats. The first one from the now famous X-Yachts of Denmark. A very sportive boat at it´s time, now sailed by a lot of racing enthusiasts both in North Germany and Denmark. The yearly championship regatta is being sailed (I am writing this on the 2nd days evening) on the Schlei this year. Not far away from home. Our boatowner, Chris, is working in Munich and he had planned his holiday around this regatta. We are sailing the boat with five people. Just under the max crew-weight. Kerstin is doing the bow and I am helming the boat. Chris is doing the pit and Sönke and Kristin are working the ropes. Not easy to coordinate when you have not done it together before. This boat is equipped with working backstays and lots of ropes. Counting in our favor are the new sails and the short introduction into the special settings (Check stays to be pulled hard on the leeward side) from class president Bernd, but it did not help much in the beginning. My first two starts where not at the front row and we managed a 9th and a 6th. We got to grips with things and put in another 6th place and a 4th. I fouled two times (starboard ./. port) at the weather mark and did my turns and everything was programmed for a better next day. No port-tack lane into the weather mark again. The boats are too close together and the other guys are sailing smart. On Saturday we did better on the course, no incidents but got black flagged in the third race. We also had some technical problems, like slipping halyards and problems with the rigging but tomorrow is another day with a better prepared boat. We are sitting in 7th place right now. The party is on and I will finish this report tomorrow or Monday. One thing for sure: This is sailracing at it´s best.

Final Report from the Sunday racing written Monday night.
It was blowing cats and dogs as we used to say here in Germany. 23kn and gusting. Every owner choose to take the No.3 jib (Blade jib) The start was perfect for us and we had good speed to windward. Maybe the tweaking of the rig and other parts last night helped with this. Coming into the weather mark very close as second boat with lots of room to the third placed X-79 we saw another OCS on the RIB. We could not believe this as we were low on the line and in middle were you have some line sag. Anyway it is a decision by the race committee and no reason for us to complain. This ought to be fun but me and the crew felt a bit depressed about it. The spinnaker hoist had to be called off though we were keen to try it out in the very strong breeze. But as we had to give room to all other boats and we had to get to grips with the situation we stowed the spinnaker away and sailed forth an back for an hour and a half to wait for the next start. Definitely no fun. The wind howling, the mainsail making noise and the mood down. I tried to cheer my crew up for the last race of the day. An even more conservative start at the leeward end saw us coming into the weather mark as close second again. During the hoist we lost 2 boats and on the run another one. Fourth boat around the leeward gate with a very good and tight manouver we tried to work into a better position but the competition showed us the way around on our homewater. A fourth place left us with no way of improving from our first days result. We left the championship with a seventh place which, with two OCS was OK for the morale. We promised ourselves to put in some practice for next years championship, have the boat a little better prepared and to start with fun and enthusiasm. Maybe in Warnemünde next year. The boat will be put back into the shed until than. Chris has to go back to work in Munich and he will sail an UFO22 in Italy over the winter. The picture is showing us on the X-79 "Intermezzo" with the CTM logo in the spinnaker during race 3. Thanks to Flix for this shot.

Breathless in Australia, but "King of the Schlei"...

Last week we had set up a little Moth training on the Schlei, the "Fjord" which is connected to the Baltic Sea where I live. A friend, Peter, came along with his pregnant wife Mellie and three sons (10,12,14 years old), and they brought with them: a Laser, a 29er, a RIB and a Bladerider Moth. You guess it, the Bladerider belongs to the father and the two of us wanted to practice a little bit together. For the followers of the Bladerider story and namely the one who regularly read Rohan Veals Blog you might remember Peter as the German guy who forgot to breath when he was out for the first time on the "flying machine" at Black Rock, Australia. Peter is distributor for RONSTAN and other Marine Hardware. He had been out on the boat for only 2 sessions before and I had 5 whilst the last one (I haven´t reported about it....) had been less exiting. To say the least. It was blowing 12-15 kn, I thought I could handle it but the boat showed me the "middle finger". OK, there was no other one out there that evening, no one to rescue me, just in case and I realized pretty soon that the boat would drift away from me after a capsize, drifting away quicker than I was able to swim. Therefore I might have been a little bit too "ängstlich". Also I had the feeling that the boat was sticky. Did not really want to fly.

OK, came last week with two Bladeriders out in a nice breeze, Peter has shown lots of talent. His airtime was only to be stopped by the shoreline and necessary maneuvers whilst my airtime was limited and my day out shortcut by a broken swivel. No spare part available gave me such frustration in the early afternoon that I was not able to do something about it and I only watched Peter flying past, than Kerstin on Peters boat and the absolute shocker: The 12 and the 14 years old just did it. No fuzzing around. Getting on the boat, taking off and doing some nice runs. Amazing and a prove that the product is a good one. Absolute beginners just doing it! In hindsight I think that the swivel on my boat broke, because some of us, mabye me, might have catched the wand under water whilst swimming around the bow. The wand is fixed in a Teflon swivel and after a while this part broke and the wand could not "get me up". Later that afternoon I took the part into my workshop, found a nice little solid carbon block, flexed it into shape, drilled the necessary holes and back to the boat and fixed it. There was still the Thursday left for two boat sailing. Bladerider also confirmed immediate despatch of a spare part. Thursday there was only very light wind but we were so keen to sail that we got both boats out and did a bit of light air practice. It was fun. It seemed that we both had read Koos Blog: Flying a Moth for starters who gave the tip to free the daggerboard foil and take the wand out of the water. Lowriding the Moth in these conditions needs concentration and is some kind á fun. Some pumping action, some OK and some bad tacks and than we got stuck on the downwind home. We called for the RIB and each of us put a wing up on one side of the powerboat, set on it and drove home to the club. De-rigging, packing up and a promise to do it again. It is fun with one Moth but it doubles the fun with two! By the way: the picture above shows Peter at his third day out! Click on the picture and look at the GPS speed.

Uneventful days in sailing but a great Concert

Day five and six went quite uneventful with the Moth. There was a lack of wind and we do not take much fun out of lowriding in light air and spoiling our mood with "no-move" tacks. On day six, Bjoern hit an underwater object, some stones or an old bridge, and we have to repair (mostly filling and fairing) the horizontal daggerboard foil. It speaks for the quality of the product that not more has happened.

Some readers here might be interested to hear that I visited the "Rolling Stones" concert last night in Hamburg. The show was performed in the big Hamburg Arena. What a great stage they had build. The sound was fantastic and Mick Jagger and his "boys", all above 60, as dynamic as ever. At the end of a nearly 2 hours show with great background musicians (Liza Fisher) Mick ran from the left side of the stage to the most right side. A sprint of abt. 200m and he kept on singing. Great. OK, it was not the usual bra and slip throwing from the girls, just one bra, but everyone was kept in good mood and the show ended with a real BIGGER BANG. Coming to your town or near to you, you should visit it.

More Airtime...

Sharing the Bladerider with three people and only having time in the evening is not helping personnel progress as "time in the boat" is limited. On the other side: What can you do or are you able to improve, when you are totally exhausted both from the exiting experience and the powerful work-out which the boat gives to you. Remember the story on Rohan´s website about our German friend Peter, who forgot to breathe during his first outing on the Foiler-Moth. They had to bring him to the shore.

We have not forgotten to breathe but two or three 30 - 45 minute sessions where enough to get us a large grin in the face and to be exhausted and happy from the new experience on and in the water. In the meantime we had recovered in the standby motorboat, took drinks and photos and enjoyed the sight of the fellow colleague, (flying) who always tried to put in a show. Very often we were shouting and cheering full of appreciation and enjoyment.

Somewhere I read that you will need 4 days to overcome the first hard part to enter the boat and to get going well. To have some real fun. It was our goal to overcome the first 4 days and than start to go up-and downwind and that is what we did yesterday. By the way, Kerstin only needed one day, Bjoern abt. 2 days and I needed the full three days. Due to the weight and only 6-8kn of wind, Bjoern and myself did not have as much airtime as Kerstin but we started to enjoy the up-wind sailing in the low rider mode. It is pretty fast and so much fun to be in control. Why haven´t I started Mothing more early. The 60kg lightweight singlehander-skiff "Seggerling", which I owe, is a dog against the Bladerider. OK, I am not spending time _in the water_ with it, but it feels heavy. Will everything feel heavy now?

Day four: Back to yesterday. You can see from the three shots (from top to bottom) that we much enjoyed our airtime. Bjoern does some good reaching on the foils. Kerstin does some fast apparent down-wind-sailing and I tried the Veal-heel and capzised to windward. I always capsize to windward, trying, what seems to be common in the class. Healing over to windward. A good day for all of us. Oh, and again I forgot to mount the Velocitek. Nothing broke, the water nice and warm, sun shining, just a little lack of wind for the boys.

Instead of going cruising the upcoming weekend, we will put in more hours in the Bladerider and we do hope the weather cooperates. The next racing (hasn´t this been the intention of this blog??) will be in the X-79 class at the end of August. We will sail the German Championship close to home. An opportunity we could not miss.

Flying the Moth...or not...

Intro: Regular readers might have noticed that besides my dinghy and keelboat activities, I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of the Bladerider Moth. This very interesting boat had been ordered by me and my CTM team during hanseboot show at exact 10.01h. One minute after the official opening of the show did we place an order with Rohan. I must say, the waiting was long but worth it. It arrived last week and the Bladrider looks the business! All these shining carbon parts are fitting beautifully into our workshop. But that is not the intention of the boat. We want to go sailing.

First Day: Friday 3rd. Late afternoon.
We have assembled it with ease and taken to the water on Friday evening last week. We were three and had a powerboat standby for rescuing if necessary. Being the boss it was my turn at first and I think, it threw me off at least ten times until I managed to sit and sheet in. We were in a wind shadow but my movements had not been coordinated. Lowriding was not easy for me and a couple capsizes later Bjoern jumped into the water. Being an avid A-Cat sailor he managed it better than me, to get on board. Weighting abt. 100kg he did a couple capsizes with easy righting and than he "flew". Wow! A spectacular capzise and some exhausting swimming he handed the "Brute Machine" over to me again. With wind in the sail I managed decent waterstarts, pull your body on to the boat whilst sheeting in and keep the balance whilst the boat starts sailing. Grab the tiller, bear away and get on the wing. I was slipping off the wing with my Musto Wetsuit. No way of sitting there. Had to organize my legs, tiller and sheet. Got sailing the thing. Got it into the air. Flying for about a minute...no not true, for 10 seconds. The wand came out of the water and than the bow first into the pond. Autsch. I remember I managed a slow, slow tack and a decent lowrider mode jibe. That was OK for me for the day. I handed over to Bjoern and after some: "I start flying" and capzising, the boom broke. De-rigging on the water was not easy with all the screws on the shackles. No screwdriver on hand. We got the boat home and the boom into our composite workshop.

Second Day:
The boom being repaired overnight and some hooks installed instead of screwed on shackles, we also limited the amount of rudderway with elastic. The rudder should hold itself in the middle which makes starting more easy. And it was. Wearing shorts over the wetsuit helped me getting organized on the trampoline. Getting on to the boat being no problem on the second day. Sailing in lowrider mode not a problem. We did not measure the wind, we did not mount the Velocitec but Bjoern and myself had some good success with 30-60sec airtime. Dropping off mostly to windward with the bow too high. Time to think about the adjustments maybe. Body movements forward etc.
After our go and being exhausted from swimming and righting we handed the boat to the girl. Kerstin climbed the Moth and moved like a cat. Lowriding looked easy, she did not capsize and got it on a "flight" with ease. So excited she was that she steered into the wind and capsized after a flight half across our homewater. Unbelievable. Than the righting became a little problem for her, she got exhausted and handed the boat over to us. Impressive how we improved by the hour. More time on the boat, less time swimming. We also had our computer guru with us. Arne, a cat sailor also had a go. First he just climbed the boat without problems, sailed well in lowrider mode and later when he had some airtime he dropped off the boat and the Bladerider kept on sailing. We had to catch it with our little powerboat. We would not recommend the elastic on the rudder for people sailing alone without assistance. We will demount it later when we have more experience but at present it is a hit. Nothing broken on the day, some very happy faces, smiles all over and we put the boat back in the shed. Lot´s of bruises and blue patches on legs and arms but fun it was.

Third Day:
Sunday there was no wind and besides ourselves really wanting to have another go we kept our cool and did not even try it. It would have been frustrating in drifter conditions. Monday evening after work we had another go. The Bladerider hard core Team: Kerstin, Bjoern and myself. Everybody showed good improvement, airtime and quick righting maneuvers. Not that we sailed like the team riders in the many promotion videos, no no. But everyone had decent airtime. I could handle it quite well on starboard tack but always dropped of to windward on the port tack. Worth mentioning is our ability to sail upwind and downwind and Kerstin showed a really good stunt flying the machine high and dry and capsizing it in front of the boatshed. That was the best and longest controlled foiling of all the sessions so far. Today we are healing our wounds, the sore muscles need to relax and some minor boatwork has to be done. We will try again mid of the week. I have to re-read the manual and start thinking about the adjustments. The decision to buy a company Bladerider is a good one. Some like to fly, some like to assemble and to repair the beautiful carbon parts. I know it is too early to go racing for me but we will catch up on our foiling skills pretty soon.

Vote for Andrew McDougall

You must have heart of him: He is being called Amac by his Aussie friends. The man, the brain behind the Bladerider, a series-production-boat which placed first, second and other top placings in the recent World Championship at Lake Garda. The man on the photo in my last post. I have heart that Andrew spent many nights preparing, upgrading or just repairing boats and he still managed a 6th place in a hotly contested WC. And no, I am not bringing up the age issue. Having a decade more on my back and trying to go out with the brand new Bladerider for the first time today, I will know later today how it feels. I´ll keep you guys out there updated. In the meantime please go to: Seahorse Mag and vote for this great sportsman. A man who brought a vision into production.

For more International Moth newbie information go to: Flying a Moth for starters Fun to read and lot´s of valuable information to the newcomer of flying-this-thing.

The long absence from this blog was due to my sailing holiday in the Baltic Sea. Lot´s of trouble to get away, to get started but in the end we left our homewaters a week after the ETS had been set. Nevertheless some awesome experience, lots of wind and two days of rain from early morning till midnight. Some stories might be told later.

Let s put the Cup behind...

It had been exciting times during this America´s Cup period. Due to Internet it was possible to follow the races live. To get pictures, we had Livestream from the German National TV programs and on top of that, I had wonderful mail conversations with friends and enthusiasts around the world. I love this and the sooner (2009?) the better. We are not getting any younger and I doubt that the heros of today, e.g Paul Cayard or Brad Butterworth (just to name a few) would be able to play on top of the game in 4-5 years time. We will definetely see new stars like Dean Barker, James Spithill, Karol Jablonski rising and some of the very good match racers from Denmark, the likes of Jensen, Mohr, Radich will play important roles in this game. I have now put my special America´s Cup link list to rest at the bottom right and brought back on top my favourite bloggers and others. The photo (courtesy myself) by the way, shows the ETNZ Team going out for battle (eeh, get the A-Team up for speed) before the start of the exiting third race.

It had also been exciting to follow the Moth´s World at Lake Garda. What an achievement from Rohan Veal with the series built Bladerider to win the title with 8 straight bullets. There had been a lot of critics about the boat and the "lofty" PR campaign he was running but me and a sailing friend from Kiel never doubted the boat being a success. Now we are eagerly waiting for ours to play and swim and later maybe fly. Will keep you updated. The photo in the Post above (courtesy by Thiery Martinez) by the way, does not show me and Peter K. from Kiel on our first outings, NO the Bladeriders haven´t arrived yet. It shows the genius on foils development, Andrew Mc Dougal (AUS) riding high at a demo in Valencia last week.

My latest sailing adventures are put together in a short story. The Musto double-hand-challenge had been a challenge this year indeed. I had to accept that I was not fit enough, nor had the boat being prepared well enough. We gave in at around 06.30h in the early morning, when we had to round a buoy close to where SAMANTHA ist berthed. Fully drained, two sets of sailing clothes completely soaked and feeling very, very tired. The last boat in the 50 strong fleet at this point had another 18 hours of sailing before them. They managed this in their small Speakhuker. A lot of upwind work to be done. Hats off for them. The weather forecast showed 38-40kn wind on the Saturday and a friend, who was sailing the same area had a period of 50kn on his instruments. I doubt these to be real but for me 40kn is already too much being in a double-hand competition. Therefore we abandoned race. The boat is now close by here in Schleswig and the "to-do-list" is being worked down. Next thing will be our cruising holiday in the Baltic sea.

Uuhps, nearly forgotten. Yesterday we did win the Wednesday night race with the Bull. That had been good for the ego after the weekend. I just have to accept that I am more a triangle (ups and downs these days) sailor than anything else. Lack of competence on navigation, weather and other things which you really, really need for overnighters and distance races. And my crew, my lady, she is a triangle sailor as well.

The 3rd Race goes into History. 2:1 for the Kiwis.

Been in Valencia on June 26th to watch the third race in the 2007 America´s Cup with my fellow colleagues. We had booked the full program including the MY "Newflash" going out on the race course. The picture to the left shows the ETNZ leaving the marina through the canal at about 12.00h as being the first team. The "B" team with helmsman Ben Ainsle left just before. We headed out at around 14.30h. It was a lumpy sea out there, big swell right in front of the canal. These conditions would have been called "boat breaking conditions" in San Diego in the early days of the IACC class. The girls from my team went complete seasick, my "toughest man" a little green despite the seasickness pills which we had been taken. They were warned and the rest of the team decided to stay outside until it is finished. Readers of the official site and the various blogs (I highly recommend my AM Cup link list) will know that we had to wait until a minute to 17.00h when Peter Reggio started the race. That it would become the "race of the century" was not clear at that moment and not 10 minutes into the race when the Kiwis had hit a right hand shift, a big lift for them which also had more pressure. Their lead was about 300m on the virtuell eye, which was installed on a plasma screen on the yacht. We had a very experienced captain who was able to place the 26m luxury MY at the center of the action. Often bringing the boat into the "not allowed" area which was marked with red buoys and only allowed for boats with red/yellow flags. There was plenty to see and plenty to discuss and the crew of "NEWFLASH" brought champagne out when the race was finished on a nail biter.

The evening was spend in the Estrella Damm bar (as the evening before) where we met some friends and also people from the German Team. They kept their lips tight about next days announcement that Karol Jablonsky (DN P-36) would become skipper of the UITG-Team who had just been allocated sail nr. GER-101 for their second IAC Yacht, which is under construction around the corner in Kiel. Anyway it had been an unforgettable time spend in Valencia for the 32nd America´s Cup. I close this report with a picture, also taken with my mobile. Showing ETNZ with skipper Dean Barker, coming in after that hard earned victory against Alinghi. I must admit, that I fear at this stage, that Alinghi will shift up another gear and are coming back into their winning zone. We will wait and see. Three interesting days are lying ahead.
Eine gut geschriebene Zusammenfassung des 3. Rennens fand ich auf meiner Clubseite. Hier der Link: http://www.ssc-online.de/html/rennen_3.html

Gone Sailing and watching the AM Cup

Two ..uuhps three tasks at hand on the weekend:
1. "Samantha" had to be delivered to Flensburg for the upcoming Musto-Double-Hand-Challenge.
2. On Friday we had been invited to race on a Archambauld 35 during Kieler Woche and:
3. The first two races in the Americas Cup this season!
Gone sailing in Kiel Friday evening. The pleasure factor from this regatta being just OK. Nice boat but with a 35 footer you would not like to start in IMS 1 where you have mostly 45 footers upward. Takes a bit of fun away already close after the start. One after the other is passing just on the basis of a longer waterline.
Saturday afternoon we watched the first race (on compie) and were not too much impressed after that first wind shift which some commentators have seen at abt. 10-12° in favour of "Alinghi". Nevertheless she did not look slow.
Jumped into the car after the race to drive up north (Maasholm) to the boat and detaching ropes within half an hour. Sailing upwind until midnight in a nice breeze and a late sundown with some moon putting a silver shine on the sea. Berthed for the night at Marina Minde late at one o´clock and leaving next day in a rainstorm reefed. Ended up motoring in no wind at close to 13.ooh into the Marina Sonwik and got collected after putting all the wet stuff away. Just making it home for the second race and man, has it been exciting. 1:1 and everything is OK. Tomorrow I will be with my team in Valencia watching the third race. I still cannot believe this as we had booked it already last year. And now we see a very important race.

A friend had send me some interesting comment on the race strategy yesterday. Read for yourself if you have not scrolled through all my links on the right side. As I understand the analyses is from Gary Jobson. One of my favourite tacticans of the old days. He and Dr. Stuart Walker whom´s books taughed me a lot.

quote
ETNZ caught a favorable wind shift on the left side of the course during
a tacking duel. ETNZ closed within one boat length after trailing by
three lengths. Hutchinson called for his helmsman, Dean Barker, to sail
low of course by about 7 degrees. But ETNZ did not ease the sails out.
Butterworth on Alinghi called for helmsman, Ed Baird to tack right on
the Kiwi’s wind. Fooled by NZ’s head fake, the call to tack was made too
early. Instead of hurting NZ’s wind Alinghi allowed the Kiwis to have
clear air in their sails. Barker brought his boat back up on the wind
and now had the Swiss blocked. It was a rare mistake by Butterworth. And
it was costly.

Quelle: http://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/news/07/gj/#Race2

Its all about the folks behind...

This morning I read a letter in the Euro Scuttlebutt which really struck me. I like to bring it on here for people to understand what made me a "fan" of the Kiwi camp. It also brought back the memory of the long night in early 2003. Me and my DN friends had stayed up to see the first of the TNZ vs. Alinghi start at 02.00h in the morning in a hotel at Lake Goldberg, only to see the Kiwi boat falling apart. Three of us showed tears. Nevertheless we had some good Iceboat racing the next day.

quote
* Rob Wilkinson, Auckland, New Zealand: Although it would improve my bank balance for the Cup to come back down 'ere, I have to agree it's better for the sport for it to stay in Europe. The hyperbole in the local media is "they're one step away from bringing it home", but personally I can't see them overhauling Alinghi. My bet is 5-3 to the Swiss, not that I'd tell my staunch Kiwi father-in-law that. He'll personally march me to Immigration and have my passport revoked for being a traitor.

It's quite incredible, though, how New Zealanders really get behind the team. People who know the square root of duck all about yachting - they still think Anchor is a brand of butter and port is just a fortified wine - are totally compelled by the whole thing. Our small nation tucked away in the corner of the world might just possibly beat Bertelli and his billions.

The morning after the LV Cup final match, I was sitting in a waiting room and some little old lady was yawning and remarked she hadn't slept for a week because she'd stayed up all night to watch the racing. She didn't know anything about sailing but wanted to "support the boys". I swear there's only two degrees of separation between everyone in the country so her grandson is probably on the team.

Then I went to the chemist and the two old guys behind the counter were clarifying who the strategist and tactician were (they finally agreed, and got it right). It's like that everywhere. There are few places in the world you'd get that kind of public support for yachting.

I'm glad Sir Keith Mills has entered the Cup fray and put the Poms back in the game but I bet few landlubbers north of Hampshire could tell you (come 2009) who the Origin skipper is. Down here, every man, woman and child knows that Deano is "captain" of our boat. No pressure, mate.

I still recall watching the first race of the 2003 final at Auckland Airport. The whole arrivals terminal came to standstill as the boats crossed the line. No one cared about people pouring through immigration. Hundreds of eyes were transfixed on the big screen. The boom broke, blue bucket came out to bail out, the headsail ripped out of the foils and the team retired and people around me started crying. I was more staggered about the public reaction than NZL82 almost sinking.

If Dalts, Dean and co do win it back, it'll be one 'eck of a party. It'll make the '95 celebrations look like a village carnival. Cheers from Kiwi land, possibly the future home of the Auld Mug.
unquote

Racing the Bull and thoughts about OL classes

The beautiful German summer weather turned into rain, thunderstorm and strong winds on Friday last week. On my to-do-list there had been a couple of things with the rigging. Lengthen the shrouds, shorten the headstay to get the mast more upright but I hate to fiddle with the boat (any boat) in the rain. We hoped to have enough time to do the jobs on Saturday. Saturday again, very bad weather and we cancelled the racing for ourselves and visited Kieler Woche, which had just started for all the Olympic Classes + 1. Plus one being the 2,4mR disabled sailors. First half of Kieler Woche this year being held exclusive for the existing OL classes.

K. had never been to Kieler Woche though she did some very competitive 470 sailing, but due to the iron curtain and the decline in sailing after the wall came down, she had only able to sail at Warnemünde or otherwise on the East German lakes. (This whole thing is a story in itself) Nevertheless, I thought that in Kiel I would not meet any German OL sailors whom I know, as all the Olympic sailors are max 25 years old since the Soling had to go. Wrong I was. There is still Roland Gäbler in the game, leading as per today the Tornado fleet and in the Star, Alex Hagen. Not to forget Marc Pickel, whom we helped with selection of materials for his new Starboat. (This just to drop a few names). Offshore boats, IMS 1 - 4 were also in Kiel and the crews were in the beer tent, which was fully packed. We had a few interesting talks around the Foiler Moths and Finn Dinghy developments. (Oh so, beautiful these Wilke carbon masts!). Scrolling through the results sheets: http://www.kieler-woche.de/segeln/index.htm I found that the participants in some classes were at the very low end compared to years before. Bad timing with ISAF worlds I was told. But where are all the Germans, normally found in the Tornado, Star or 470 class? Good participation during weekend regattas or more fun orientated events like Travemünder Woche might be one of the reasons. Is it no fun to compete against "full time" sailors? To learn it the hard way? I had done it, many years ago in the Flying Dutchman. Having the oldest boat (G-500) on the start line. Being last in every race. Capzising even before the start and some "not so nice FD guys" laughing at me. This only made me work harder till I got to grips with the sport I still love.

One Day in Valencia

Just have to send a quick report about my last "non-sailing-event", though it was in the heart of the America's Cup. In Valencia at June 13th. I had been invited earlier this month to the Boat builders Ball from SP, Isle of Wight and my dear friends insisted that I had to come. OK, I arrived yesterday afternoon and went straight to the Estrella Damm Bar with the SP guys. This bar being the meeting point as I had been told and of course there arrived a couple of sailors from the Kiwi camp, Ben Ainsle, Rod Davis and a few guys who's name I do not know (yet). Like being well organized, later in the afternoon, the two Alinghi boats were towed in. They must have been out two boat practising. Later at the party (it only started to buzz at around midnight) I was told by one of the umpires that the Alinghi boats raced each other with umpires and all the works. The Kiwi camp kept a good look on the two boats, they could immediately tell me which one was SUI 100 and which one the SUI 91. I would need a few days adjusting to it but of course, they are watching these boats with eagles eyes. ...I heard it through the grapevine: Four STP 65´s are currently under construction. "Rosebud" being ready to sail the next days. One belonging to a German Owner. Ex Admiral's cup winner. The second German IAC Yacht will get the number GER-101. Construction is well under way. Alinghi coming out of tacks a couple of seconds faster than ETNZ. Also not necessary to bear away so much with SUI-100 to get back up to speed after tacking. Some insiders gave it 5:0 to Alinghi, I expect much closer racing and hopefully a ninth decider race, going to the Kiwis. The underdogs, who have hopefully kept their best weapons in the shed sofar. I'll let you know more when I am back from visiting Valencia again for third final race on June 26th with all my team here at CTM.

All New...but less Speed

All new, yes, nearly: The Bull got new rigging, very light Easy Rigging carbon cables and a new square cut mainsail. To say I was not happy with the outcome at the first day out on the water, is an understatement. Either the boat was slow or I did sail slow. The Taktick never showed more that 5.6kn when in the old configuration I got the speed up to 6.2 on a flat water upwind leg.
I have to do more testing with different rake and when I have calmed down I will write about what went wrong from the manufacturers side.

Two nights on anchor... just about

Time is passing by so quickly for an Americas Cup junkie that it is difficult to cope with updating this blog about my own sailing experiences. The time is lost in the workshop, preparing the new rig for the Bull but I want my weekend to go out into the Baltic Sea to get back some sea legs on the 36 footer, "Samantha". And difficult it was. No, not to get free from work, it was difficult to cope with the grey Saturday and the chop and waves, created by the eastern wind, once out there. I did not feel good and asked myself: Why am I not using the dinghy inside on the "pond" instead. But this was a cruising weekend. Therefore let's start at the beginning: It was our first weekend with "SAM" this year. In May I had chartered it out to a couple to let the boat make some Moonies.

So, on the first weekend in June, we were greeted with a marvellous sunset in the big marina in Maasholm. This is a 40 min drive from home. Too many boats, too close together, narrow passages. All things which I do not like, so normally we cut lines immediately after having stowed the goodies and filled the tank with fresh water and sail "out of this place". (Eric Burdon's song jumps into my mind) Around the corner there is a nice bay where we dropped anchor for the night. Cosy to say the least. I had admired German Circumnavigator-against-the-wind, Wilfried Erdmann, who once dropped anchor in this bay (the only boat at that night) after a hectic schedule which he must have had in Kiel during the Volvo Ocean stop over, where he had a promotion job with his 11m aluminium sloop. Some readers might remember the thousands and thousands visitors and Erdmann's boat was cramped with people. People who could familiarize more with this boat instead of the "Illbruck" or the other V60´s. Me, coming back from the Volvo Ocean flotilla, my guests being unloaded in Kiel-Schilksee, who had greeted the boats at the Kiel Lighthouse and putting the boat straight into the marina berth, driving home, had to stop on the road and look at the lonesome boat "Kathena" on anchor in the bay with the sun setting nicely. I put in thoughts if I am doing it right here. Not staying on board for another night. On anchor. And going to work early next morning after putting the boat away. He seemed to do it right. You do not need to have an anchorage far away, in the Caribbean or the South Pacific, it can be here. Right at home. And I know from the books Wilfried Erdmann had written, he had been there, seen most of it, living an ocean cruiser live and I haven't been there. Just dreaming about, following the routes of my brother, of Moitessier, Erdmann and many others in my reading. But, I had developed into a sailboat racer early on, not a cruiser and I am now slowly enjoying the cruising part of sailing.

This story got an awful bend I just realize. But those are the thoughts. Nevertheless, it was good to drop anchor last Friday night. The next day, we sailed some 25 miles in a grey and lumpy sea and dropped anchor again in Denmark's nice Horuphav bay. The wind started to shift away from land at around 23.ooh and I decided to lift anchor and to move into the crowded marina. We were greeted by a couple at the entrance who were taking a "night stroll". They gave us a tip to berth the boat at the rigging crane which we did. The boat just squeezed in there and I felt relaxed for the night. Next day the sun greeted us and we had a marvellous sailing day with some messy manoeuvres using the spinnaker and the code zero. But that is something we could improve. We must improve for the upcoming double-hand-challenge end of this month.

Wednesday (yesterday) night again sailing Jürgen´s Melges24. Being first ship home (just about) but not on corrected time, I see my windspotting and crew-handling a bit weak at present. No wonder with so few sailing time only. One does not get better from watching it on the computer or TV. One has to go out there and to do it!

Wednesday Night (beer can) Race in a Melges 24 and "updates"

Only yesterday, did I sail my second beer can race on the home water this season. Due to changes in life and other responsibilities I do not have my Bull 7000 ready for sailing. But this season, we have two Melges 24 in the fleet. Jan has purchased his boat "Bostik Bad Boys" in late autumn and he did practise all through the winter. Every Saturday going out with his team. I could see them sometimes passing by and got a bit nervous about the hours, they were spending in their new boat. They had asked me sometimes to come out and play but I am changing things on the rig and the Bull is not yet ready for sailing. Until yesterday I was even hopeful that I would be able to beat the Melges on the line but I fear that this is not possible. I had to change my mind which was built on last years results against Melges 24´s which might not have been sailed to even 80% of their potential. Anyway, I got my hand on the tiller of "Henri LLOYD" yesterday and I did crew for Jan on his boat last week. They were keen to learn and practise the Kiwi drop, which I had learned from the designer Greg Young during a Bull´s training session. It is a very common maneuver with A-sail boats but mostly unknown to regular spinnaker users. The main thing is to douse the A-Sail on the windward side whilst rounding the mark. NOT before. All the cloth drops nicely into the rig and you have your crew on the windward side to stow it away. Mostly this is the side to hoist it from leeward on the up-wind-mark.

The M24 "Henri LLOYD" came to Germany recently from England. There are not many used boats on the market at present and with a little communication assistance by myself, the boat ended up on the Harwich (GB)/Esbjerg (DK) ferry, where the new owner, Jürgen, collected it, using my German number plate on the English trailer. You just drive on the ferry, tow it on and off you go. Easy. Did that many, many years ago with a Flying Dutchman, coming in on a Roll on/Roll off Vessel from Australia. But this boat belonged to FD friends from down under to be used on their EURO tour. Customs office wanted to know about. Off course, and I told them to treat the Aussie boat like a football which you need for playing. Got away with it after much discussions. Otherwise you need to pay customs duty and VAT. Have to fill in many documents and be able to claim the money later when the boat goes back home.

So, "Henri LLOYD" was offered to me yesterday and I collected crew and off we went. A pity that the "Bostik Bad Boys" did not come out to play. They had work to do. New Boats to prepare for collection. That is their trade and it is busy time at present. We managed a good start, came first to the weather mark and did some nice downwind work with my experienced 14ft sailor in the crew. The wind nearly died. It died totally for us. At least that is what we thought. We came to a standstill, long way in front of the fleet of X-79, X-99´s and other boats. We sat there, waiting for the wind to pick up again but the only thing which happened, was the fleet to catch up with us. Deep inside I had thought we were caught in the soft mud but my crew, who knows this water from swimming and windsurfing all over the place, denied this until I asked why a goose feather on the water would now start passing us from behind. OK, heel and rock the boat free. We rounded the weather mark in third place, first happened to be old Windsurf buddy, Klaus on his Mistral Raceboard with a huge sail. Well done Klaus! We managed to get back into the front in this zephyr wind. We were in good mood due to being out there and our result does not turn Jan away from racing against us. Stay tuned. We will take the Melges out again next Wednesday. By the way, the photo at the top shows the committee boat on the way home, towing two tailenders. (click on it to enlarge) K. took it from the roof of our new house which is under construction. This being one of the reasons, the racing comes a bit short this summer season. My goal is to get the new in-house workshop ready by November and start into a full DN season next winter. Any by the way, for anyone interested: the Bladerider has delayed the delivery again until 10th of June. Clever guys, they are sending out regular status reports, which stops nervous clients from calling in. I understand that they want to see a fleet of their boats at the Worlds in Lake Garda later this month and me and my friends are far from being able to even reach a starting line in this nice little craft. So, let us patiently wait for the Flying Moth to arrive in June.

Taken the Singlehand-Dinghies for a ride...

All of a sudden there was time left in the evening after the LV Semi Finals came to an end and work in the company had been done. A sunny evening which allowed to sail in shorts and T-shirt. First we sailed across to the SSC sailing club youth training to take part, but the young sailors did some playing and mocking around with boats. No marks laid, just playing cat and mouse. Not bad and maybe fun in a fleet that varies from 29er, Laser, Pirat, Europe and others. We decided to do a long downwind stretch, some 5km as this is my weakness against the girl. Much wind reading and anticipation for the next shift required to stay close but once she catches a gust, she is off and I am left behind in a different wind system.

Anyway, we met our friends Roger and Jörg doing some Laser training. We did some upwind work with them, Roger as fast as ever but Kerstin able to stay in front. I had some problems shifting into "competition mode", which normally is not a problem for me but once in the back of the 4 boat fleet, I only did the wrong things. Tacked into a hole etc. When a big black cloud appeared over the town which Roger analysed as a wind sucker we departed to either ends of the Schlei Fjord to reach our berths before the wind would die. A nice evening of sailing was finished with a round of strawberries from the nearby fields, purchased earlier in the day.

Great Reading about the Americas Cup

There are some Journos out there who´s AM Cup articles your fellow blogger is reading with interest and enviousness. Great stories about a great event. There is nothing like that happening around my life, though it is not boring, but how can I interest someone with a story about me putting the DIV II board out on the water to try to beat my lady in her dinghy. Just for the records, it happened last weekend and I put in an extra hour of boardsailing after the exciting races yesterday, when BMWO beat Luna Rossa across the line in a tough race. Tough to watch. That is why I needed some relief. You will guess by now that I am cheering more the Italian boys, the Brazilian magican, the Italien Gentleman and the Aussie boy other than the slick and self-appointed challenger team, Oracle. At least, this is the image they have built around them. Now the wall of self confidence must be dented. I am not a believer in the sand-bagging theories appearing in some sailing forums.

On another note, I read today one of the best sentences about sailing with a crew. Confidence in your crew. Something which gave me shivers. James Spithill, Helmsman, Luna Rossa Challenge, about his crew: "The guys have pretty much said to me ‘put the boat wherever you need to and the sails will be there’ and they have delivered. So it’s full credit to those guys.”

Thank you James and keep up the good work. I don´t mind to be glued to the screen during racetime and hope to see you in Valencia in the final, when I am paying a visit.

Worst Mistcake...

Tillerman on Propercourse writes today: "Write a post on your blog about the worst mistake or most embarrassing moment you had while sailing". mmmh, he wants this "to serve as terrible warnings" - a very good idea, indeed. A pity, nobody had warned me about what happened to me in the following story, but would this have been possible for the incident which I had ran into?

Some years ago, being on a cruise with my 36 footer in the Baltic Sea with girlfriend, the 5 year old boy and the dog, sun is shining, just a light breeze from the back and only the main up. There is a shallow marker at a corner of an island which we want to round, 1,5 miles outside. Girlfriend reading the map and pointing towards the marker. Some Danes take an inside route, which I also did during a regatta some years ago. "Well, you know, I know this area..."
We are not heeling at all. Suddenly we are running aground. The boat shakes, the boy (his first trip) feels the boat bumbing on the ground. The dog barks. Boy starts crying, dog goes crazy. Girlfriend ash white. We have to take the main down. Immediately. I push the dog down below, girl holds son and the main drops down on the 5,20m long boom. Dog is bleeding on his paw and wants out. Starting the engine, reverse. No reaction. Waving with rope to boats passing close. No reaction. Someone yells: "Heel that thing" - he cannot know that we have a winged keel. Draft 2m´s and we are sitting on these bloody wings. Heeling increases the draft. Oh, could someone please pass by and throw a little wave?? Someone up there must have heart it. A small passenger ship in the distance sends some gentle waves... the boat rises from the ground, full reverse, touches just a little at the trough and takes of with the next one. Slowly out of here. Backwards in the same direction were we came from. Planned destination cancelled. Straight home. The little one, since than, does not want to step onboard again. He has felt emotionally the wrong aggregate state of the boat.

The boat did not carry any damage but a fortnight later my charterer asked me if I knew a new route around that cape. "Oh, well no. I cannot recommend this way. Please stay out if you round that corner". Bloody me, I forgot to delete the course lines in the Garmin...

Sailing without fun...but fun in the sun!

This blog is actually updated (noops, I was not able to send it through, I am doing it today, being homebound) from the airport in Singapore where we are in transit from Bali back to Hamburg via Frankfurt. The reason to visit the beautiful island of Bali as a first timer, had been an invitation to a wedding party in the Four Seasons Resort, at Jimbaran Bay Four Seasons, Bali , from a good ol' friend and sailing buddy of mine, with whom I had shared my last H-Boat, G-736 some years ago and the 36db, GER-3843 which I still keep and sail. Our friend did marry into an Indonesian family. This had been an event which I did not want to have missed. Actually it had been the most incredible event I had been to. Not only wedding wise. Definitely something, which I will never forget. (K. just talks on her mobile from Singapore Airport to her parents in Wittenberge and she told me that it is just as phoning from next door...amazing times) OK, the wedding party went on for 3 days and I had put in 3 extra holidays, getting the very special rate in a place which I normally would not choose as my holiday home. Anyw, one of the days we went sailing in the resorts only 2-hander, a Hobie Cat with a "keel". (do not know exactly the type) It was nice to be out on the Indic (Indian Ocean for non- circumnavigators) but to sail the boat was horrible. The boat was very hard on the helm. Weatherhelm. I could not find out what was wrong before coming back to shore with a sour arm. The instructors told me that they are waiting for a new rudder from Australia, which takes time. OK, it made me happy that I had not forgotten how to get through the surf in a Cat, but sailing a straight line was near impossible. The rudder just had way too much rake which put the boat out of balance. We tried to wet ourselves afterwards with a sea-kajak but it seemed that we had missed all, but one wave on the last run-in. With this last wave we did a handstand, burying the nose into the sand… a lot of laughter not only from the beachmasters but also from ourselves.

Out of balance is what I am today after the exhaustive trip home, following the daylight. But it is not the tiredness, it is a little virus in the system which keeps me close to were you wanna be alone…

No sailing in Valencia but a great day in Schleswig...

One gets tired to read about postponements and "no race days" in Valencia though as a sailor, I have "been there" in quit a few occasions when we travelled far, say to the Med to take part in the FD regatta in San Remo or later in Hyeres when it either blew "cats and dogs" or the see stayed calm. Same happened during Kiel Week but never for more than 3 days. The good thing is that work get´s done, the bad thing for me that some journalists are digging into crap. E.g. suggesting that Dean Barker of ETNZ is not good enough because he lost against the Latin Rascals in the first race. Pressure is built here from English Journos, as far as I can interpret things. These guys want to see Ben Ainsle on the wheel to have an advantage for the next round when Britain takes part with the ORIGIN challenge. I have followed the Kiwis since the "Skiff on steroids", NZL 20 days. Being a tiny little supporter by purchasing some team gear and "promoting" this team within my group of sailing friends. Everyone here has heart the voice of the Cup, Peter Montgomery. We have a sailmaker friend, who learned from the many Cup videos which I got send from Kiwiland, to act and speak like PM. Great Fun. Back to what I want to say: Barker took some scalps during the Match Circuit. Some big scalps and I believe that the ETNZ will make it through into the Cup. And if not and you ask e.g. Dennis Conner, who will win the Cup: His answer is said to be: "A Kiwi. There is a Kiwi in every team". Like that.

Yesterday had been an interesting day here in the sailing community. My friend collected his Melges24 from the Harwich/Esbjerg ferry, the former HENRI LLOYD, from England. The boat was purchased through phone and mail with help from my side cause of language problems. Without ever meeting the owner in person, it proved to me that as a sailor (a boatowner) I can trust sailors (boatowners) elsewhere because we share the same passion. Passion for boats.

This also applies to my fellow colleague, Bjoern, who recently purchased an older 1/4 Tonner. A Bruce Farr Design, built abt. 30 years ago in Germany at the former Burmester boatyard in Bremen. A cold moulded boat, still in very good condition. Yesterday we celebrated the "boat in the water" event. The official launching will happen later. I do hope that I can post a photo later about this interesting boat, which still pleases the eye. Having done some 1/4 ton sailing myself on a Nissen design, I had many chances in the old days to look at the beautiful wide stern of this particular Farr design. (Wide of course in the meaning of the IOR days, today most boats are wider)

So, K and I did sail to the event with our dinghies. We live just on the other side of the water. (On the north side, just about the middle of the picture. Our friend watered his Farr boat just across on the south side. We launched from the green close to where we live and when we came back later, after doing some up-and-downs to shake the tacking and jibing cow webs off, we de-rigged under a full blossom cherry tree. What a sight.

Did you watch the anemometer in Valencia?

Anybody who watched the anemometer in Valencia over the last 30min would have been amazed that the windspeed had been 0 knots! This thing either sits in the windshadow of a chimney or something else or the weather is not cooperating at all!

Actually I believe that the Spaniards have placed their Anemometer free of every windshadow and what we see is what we get...Have a look yourself and pray that the condition will improve now, when it looks like +39 might have their version 5 mast ready to race. Go: Weather Data from Valencia and press thumb for the Finn Dinghy guys in the AC.

Two days of waiting for the AM Cup Races to start

It is the second day with starts postponed in Valencia. Not a sign of enough wind. At least the weather has changed from the cold blustery days to some nice and warm sunshine from what we can read. I am not there. I am following it via the Americas Cup Homepage. I think for the true aficionado it is not a bad thing. He understands the adverse weather conditions and that you cannot schedule sailboat racing according to the TV program.

Every sailor or windsurfer must have come to a sailing site where the locals told you: "It is always windy or always sunny here" and when you arrive, you find just the opposite. Or the locals tell you: "You should have been here an hour ago". It happened to me quite often, when driving to the Baltic Sea from Hamburg, to put in some windsurfing in the waves (small) and to air my 4.7 or 4.2qm sail, it seemed that I had arrived too late.

The weather in Europe or more special at the Med is, according to my sources, normally more reliable as at present. But this does not help when everybody down there and at the recent Mallorca regatta has frozen like never before. In the sum of all external forces I think the weather did not change much but it may have moved. We here in the North of Germany did not have frozen lakes during this winter. The people on the Med have had 4 weeks of really bad weather, even snow where it normally does not snow at this time of the year. We can only hope for the better and better it will get in Europe. Whilst "down under" they start preparing for winter, we are coming into our spring and summer season. May the gods of wind prepare some nice racing in Valencia!

And by the way to all European moaners. It is far better to have a postponement line from AC Valencia on your work station during office hours, other than being glued to the TV at 02.00am and not knowing if it will happen or not. Smooth watching.

Digging into the past

This blogger is a little bit out of order due to a bad cold which does not allow me to go out on the water or to do the jobs on the boats which have to be done. Of course there is some planning for the upcoming Double-Hand-Challenge, being started from Flensburg and maybe a participation in the Melges 24 Europeans held in Neustadt.

Every sailor here knows that racing on your own boat brings a lot of satisfaction but also heaps of work in the preparatory stage, whilst crewing for a friend/owner shifts over the workload and the boat prep to someone else. Going through the stages of a bad cold, I could easily decide to skip all boat work and just jump on a well prepared boat as seems to be the Melges24, purchased this week by a friend of mine with whom I had some excellent sailing and racing results in the past. I will never forget one specific Kiel Week in the heydays of IMS, when we sailed together on his X-382 with a good crew. Jürgen and I decided to share the helming from one race to the next as both work hard and concentration on the wheel would fade easily when jumping from office into sailracing. Jürgen started the first of 6 races as helmsman in the Kiel Cup where there were 25 competitors, all keen and many with newer boats and sails. I did the mainsheet on this toprigger and we changed place in the second race. Being a bit nervous after Jürgen set the goal with a second place and helming the first time in a competitive race with a wheel I tried to “bend” the wheel during the starting sequence that the crew asked me to ease the grip, otherwise the sailing would well be finished before arriving at the weather mark. OK, guys, I see what you mean. I sat on the rail, used the wheel like a tiller, softly touched and started to feel the boat like I used to feel any boat which I sailed before. We managed with some excellent crew work to come first and than we never looked back. We won this Kiel week overall under IMS with a near clean scoring sheet. Later during the price giving we learnt to know the Kiwi, Ross Field who was sailing in the Farr Maxi OD Class “Mistral”. Ten boats on the starting line. Very exciting. These 80´superyachts of those days where supposed to race to Stockholm the next day and Ross Field asked me to crew on his boat. Maybe he was lured into asking me, because I carried all the trophies from the stage to the bar. I thought about the offer but knew quickly that this one was not for me. I am not a distance sailor. I cannot sleep on the rail. I do not have enough power to even carry the smallest sail on a maxi yacht. I had to turn him down but asked him if I could help a friend, a sailmaker on to his boat. Yes. And that is a another story, when my friend Harry sailed on the “Grand Mistral” Maxiyacht to Stockholm with a bunch of Kiwis.

It reminds me also to another story when Greg Young asked me to have Ross Field to helm my brand new Bull7000 during Cowes Week 1996, where the boat had been delivered from Auckland. I acted a bit nasty and answered “Ross, who?. The man can do the mainsheet but I am going to helm my boat myself”. How we did not survive Cowes Week and got run down by a 40´Swan even before the first start in front of the starting line at the Royal Yacht Squadron is a story in itself.

I do hope that I get OK soon and do not have to bring up so much of my sailing history. Better to report about actual life out there on the water.

Unbelievable exciting!

just listening to America´s Cup Radio and watching the race-tracker on the official site. +39 with helmsman Ian Percy and all the Finn blokes right in front by about 203m to Areva. Our German team made it back to 5th place. We have to see how she goes downwind.

Couldn´t resist the nice weather on Sunday and took the dinghy out of the winter storage and went sailing for 2,5 hours together with K. Both had tons of fun, enjoying even our rustiness and slow tacks and jibes. NEver started that early in the season over the last years but living now so close to the water and having the boats on stand by one has to do it!

Have to hit back to the official AM CUP website to see how the +39ers are doing.

Not much happening at this time of the year

Sailing is not on my agenda at this time of the year. The transition between winter mode and spring mode brings with it a lot of work to catch up on my boats and workshop. The water is way too cold and " Cold Shock is the killer in water below 15 degrees Celsius" as Jerry Freeman, from Racing at Petit Bateau Ltd., wrote in an article, featured yesterday in the Europe Scuttlebutt. An article which I propose reading for every sailor. I am a vest wearer nearly always but have to rethink a few clothing tips when going out early and not having developed my sealegs.

A friend had send to me this morning an interesting link to a: Swedish Blogger with DN Scrot , who had survived an accident during the last DN Europeans. His boat being "skrot" which in German means: Schrott and to you English speaking guys: "Scrap". This guy has other nice boatbuilding projects featured and I wished my Swedish knowledge would be able to read through, but it isn´t.

April brings a lot of boatwork on the various projects and from May on I think we will go sailing on the water again.

DN European Championship put behind...

What a week we had in Haapsalu, Estonia. Spring temperature on the Ice and a lot of racing. One cannot ask for more. My friend Andreas Bock, (G-624) Germany won the title in a hard fight against all those young Polish, Latvian, Estonian competitors. He also beat former World Champion Ron Sherry (US-44). I had the pleasure to become second best German, finishing 20th which is not too bad without much training this season and bearing in mind that I will zero again this year. I had reported nearly daily on the German Iceboating site: www.eissegeln.de (use the link) of course in German but you will also find photos which give you an idea about the trip and the location. More photos are available on www.eissegeln.at the site from our Austrian commodore, Niklas Müller-Hartburg, who did a phantastic job, travelling 2400km with a trailer behind to find a location which would suit all 150 competitors. This big fleet of course had been divided, after 2 qualifiers in typical DN-fashion, into 3 fleets. Gold, Silver and Bronze. Anyone interested to know more, should try to read the German diary under German Iceboating Homepage on the page under DN Yacht where you can also find result lists.

Haapsalu in Estonia is the place to go for DN sailing

Tomorrow morning, Friday at around 05.00h am we will leave for Haapsalu for the DN EC. The only place in northern Europe at present, which has sailable ice conditions and with a weather report of unchanged temperatures and no snowfall predicted, we should be able to sail our European Championship from Sunday on. My friends and I have booked the ferry from Stockholm to Tallin, others are taking a ferry from Rostock into Ventspils, Latvia. The latter takes 27hrs and I think that is very boring to be on a ship that long. We prefer the 13 hours drive to Stockholm, than an overnight ferry and we will be ready to sail a few laps at around noon on Saturday. Sunday the first races are to be started. The picture attached is from the World Championships 2002 at the same place, were Ron Sherry, US-44 won the title.

A pity I could not train anymore before the Championship this year due to workload and no ice within easy reach. I have to try hard to defend my 12th position on the World Ranking, otherwise I will slip back and have to go through the qualifier races next season. This is really, really difficult. Only one race and you have to be within the top 12. Coming from a bad starting position (drawn by the computer), say left side in the 40´s or 50´s you have to do one more tack than the starters from the right and chances to make it, are small. I have been there in the qualifier league due to two bad seasons and I will try my best not to drop back again. My fellow readers should wish me luck and I promise to do some reporting.

Waiting for departure to DN EC coming weekend

Very difficult to catch up with my blog these days. There was just no opportunity to go sailing (iceboating as in winter...) and I do not want to bore you with a typical "day in the office". Or a Monday evening like this one, where I catched up on reading fellow bloggers messages.

Just to let you know about the difficulties this year to find good places for DN sailing, I´ll post the latest message from our European Commodore who is travelling with car and trailer (which has his equipment stowed) from Vienna to Poland and further into Sweden and now wants to check Conditions in Finland and maybe look further on into Estonia. All to find a suitable site where 180 sailors can launch their boats, sail races and can be accomodated for the upcoming European Championship. Niklas is a great guy who is doing this in the old fashioned style. Looking it up for himself. Not trusting webcams, not trusting reports from people who want to pull us into their territory to make some money, or just lazy race organisers who do not like to travel. Niklas, we here in the north of Germany really do appreciate what you are doing at present. Keep cool and keep up the good work. See you on the Ice.

Posted by Niklas (Commodore) on Monday, March 05, 2007 - 07:04 pm:
Dear friends, to avoid - I know that this is almost impossible - too havey discussions in the grapevine I decided to post some preliminary informations here.
I started on thursday night from Vienna to Gizycko (where has been the Polish Championship) to check the ice there. Arriving on friday Irealized that the icesituation in combination with the weatherforecast is not good enough. Saturday I got information from Kjell..that there are some spots in Sweden, but it came out that only the spot in Västeras could be good enough for a EC. The other spots have too thin ice.
Now I'm in Västeras and we wait for rain, so that the slush and snow may disappear. For what will happen with the water afterwards I'm missing the phantasie. Tomorrow (Thursday) we will have the decision if the EC will be in Sweden or not.
If the decision is not to sail in Sweden, there are two possibilities: Finland and Estonia. Tomorrow I get informations from the Fins and from the Estonians about the icesituation there. The decision where it will be I can do when I have seen the ice myself. So I have to go there and this takes time. So please wait till tomorrow for the information if we will sail in Sweden or not. And please be patient with me - it's not that easy. Think Ice. Niklas

No DN sailing but a video for the "Warmduscher*"

No DN sailing last weekend. Good Conditions only in Poland but a 15 hours drive away. Some of our DN friends took part in the DN World Championship this week where Bernd, G-107 came 3rd and former W/C Ron Sherry, US-44 finished 4th. Congratulations! Also the junior, Max Minarek, G-479, did well. Find more information through my links > Eissegeln.

Normally I would not like to recommend a youtube video here but this one: GEANT, Orma60 tri in a breeze is something I had to watch several times. Michel D in mid Ocean sailing GEANT, the ORMA 60 tri, upwind in a breeze. Wow. Comparing this to the Fomula 40 sailing, which I did years ago on Lake Garda, I think I was in Kindergarten.

Das mit dem Tri ist definitiv nichts für Warmduscher und auch nichts für Forumsegler. Eisberichte vom Solgen, Schweden klingen gut. Morgen geht die Rundmail raus, wenn unser Scout vor Ort grünes Licht gibt.

*Warmduscher = staying home and taking a hot shower instead...

No Iceboating, Weather is going crazy this Winter

We did not drive to Sweden last weekend for the DN regatta. The weather report did not convince us. Not enough wind at the Mälaren. Some Dutch friends made the trip, which for them is 5 hours more, and they did some racing in snowy conditions. They did well, they love these conditions. Maybe we should not look too much into the computer and try to analyse the weather, just hopp in the car and go. As we did in the years before Internet.

I got a nice respond to my thread: "Who is your sailing hero?". Very interesting to read. Look at the comments and give me yours: Sailing Hero, comments...

DN Sailing - a trip to Sweden on Feb, 2nd.

This blog had been started in December 2005 because I wanted to tell some of my friends about iceboating in Germany as well as keeping a log myself. Long time ago I had given up to write shortcuts into my trim-book. With the ever changing hardware and style of sailing as well as with new knowledge, all the numbers, written down, did not help me at the end. New Technology also made the book, with regards to roadmaps, redundant. Nowadays you are finding the smallest lake in Nowhere-land with your little GPS. On the Swedish Iceboat site they are showing the Long-and Latitude of the places to go. Just type it in and go >> OK, sometimes you have to drive for 10hours and more as we did last weekend. It is not always freezing in Germany as it did, when I started this sport. 7 years in a row we went iceboating nearby. The next 7 years we had to travel. Another 5 years of fantastic conditions in Germany after that and again some weaker wintertime following. Sometimes it was cold but way too much snow for sailing. Tried it of course but got stuck in snowdrifts. Some friends broke their boats. One of my friends started with a well built DIY boat on such a "bad" day. He got stuck several times. In the bad mood he put himself, he lost his boat from the car roof and we had never seen him again on the ice. I remember that on the Sunday after, the snowdrifts had been softened and we had some great racing. W. Schwarten was showing us how to do it and won most races by length.

Back to last weekend. Arriving in Västeras at 03.00h in the morning, going for a pee on the ice, checking if it really was there and a couple hours of sleep in the Camper. The sun was waking us up in the morning. The reed on the lakeside showed signs of wind and we knew already, that it was worthwhile to drive up all the way to Lake Mälaren. 13 boats from Germany, 2 boats only from Sweden went out for some thrilling practice races in a good Force 4 Bft wind on fast ice. A good training for the upcoming weekend when the Swedes have their official race weekend, which takes place every fortnight in different regions of this big country. Anyone who wants to read more and wants to improve his German language skills should go to:

My German report. The photo had been taken on the launch site.