Double-Hand-Challenge and Kiel Week Finals

Mmmh, I wanted to write about my "non" preparation for the Double-Hand-Challenge, starting this weekend. But so much to do in my last week before the holiday and except of avoiding coffee and cakes, I am not able to contribute much. Neither for the boat and navigation preparation, nor for my sailing blog. Anyone interested in the competitors list of the race should visit:
http://www.double-hand-challenge.de/meldeliste.php
The race is an overnighter and will last about 20hours. The course will be set 2 hours before the start. Last year I survived the race only for 20 minutes, than my Kevlar mainsail exploded in a gust where a nearby brand new X-37 broke it´s mast. Only 50% of the competitors survived the very strong winds last year but the ones who did, looked well oiled and set.

Reading through Scuttlebutt this morning, the following letter caught my interest. I hope that Magnus L. is OK with me printing it here on my blog. It is an important letter which is in stark contrast to the press releases everyone has read about the final medal races in the Kieler Woche. He is so right. I have participated in numerous Kiel Week races and often wondered about: "where does the information, out from the racecourse, come about?" Answer: Mostly written in the sheltered press center. Also the course inside the bay is definitely not ideal for medal races. Many unpredictable shifts due to the high shores on the left. The massive concrete buildings for the 1972´s Olympic races further contributing to disturbed air. And nothing has changed since the fierce Soling match race battles, between Jesper Bank, Jochen Schümann and others in the same area. Fantastic racing, but spectators: nearly none. We had always packed our Cruiser/Racer with fellow sailors and stayed till the end but there were no more than 2-3 other boats out there. Sailing will never be a real spectator sport with spectators on the water. Desk or couch spectating has a big future and I do not want to miss the America´s Cup Radio with Andy Green and colleagues. Great reporting! But for now let Magnus talk:

quote
* From Magnus Liljedahl (edited to our 250-word limit): I feel obligated to comment on the new format of finishing a grade 1 event. I witnessed the Star finals during the recent Kiel regatta and my opinion it was very different from what went out in the event’s press release. It stated that it "offered perfect conditions" and that it was "successfully launched". In my view it was a very sad ending to a super nice event. The racing, up until the finals, was challenging and the leaders were deserving of podium finishes, as usually is the case. The problems in the medal race were three-fold. The course was much to short. Anyone who took a penalty was out of contention. The course location was absurd. There weren’t many spectators at all.

Finally and arguably the most serious problem was the officiating. For years sailing has been self-policed, and it still is. The judges need to understand what impact their calls have on the outcome of the race, especially a short one. The first and second place teams were both called for fouls during the run and at least one of them was totally uncalled for. The other one was questionable and that's why it should not have been called. The referees are under a big scrutiny and some will never return to "show time" events. I would agree that the sailing judges is not all a bad thing, but don't go out there and screw up and think that you deserve applause.
unquote.

Follow up on BMW Sailing Cup

Follow up:
The third day of the BMW Sailing Cup did not went according to the plan...at least for us. The wind did not cooperate in the morning, very light, very fluky and turning around the clock. This was good in one way as the saturday of the Kieler Woche is always the day of the big Squarerigger parade. And what a parade it had been this time. I think that nearly every squarerigger from this site of the pond was participating. "Gorch Fock" leading the parade with "Sedov", "Khersone" and many, many other ship following. Spectator boats by the hundreds and thousands of people lined up ashore to watch and wave the parade slowly sailing (motoring actually) out of the Kieler Förde. All these boats and ships would definitely stolen our wind if there would have been any. At 13.00h the wind slowly kicked in. Not stable in direction but sailable. We had to sit out two "races of hope", for the not qualified and the first half final. Our toughest competitor (as to my personell thinking) sailed a first and a fourth which brought him into our halffinal group of 3 boats. To make it short, we messed it up. Leading at the weather mark, we did not sail the boat well on the run, got passed by Oliver though he had sailed out 2 penalties. Helmsman and crew never found together as we should. Difficult for me not to steer this nervous boat and seeing our skipper moving so much around with the tiller. Handbreak on most of the time. Me being nervous as I did see some chances to qualify for the final, also not being able to give my very best as crew. If you are sailing with a gennaker or spinnaker in very light air it is necessary to have the best communication and cooperation between trimmer and helmsman. We were just damn slow and this had cost us first place and direct qualification into the final.

There was still hope as the organisers had put a "runner up" race into place. 4 boats and the first one to qualify for the final of 3 boats. A nice shedule by the way as it kept 12 crews in the competition nearly until the end. The wind had kicked in from the west, direct from the shore which was high with a wood and therefore some nasty windshadows on the weather mark. The course area bwing restricted by the marked deep water, which has many ferries coming and going into Norway, Sweden and Finland. A big shift to the left at about 3 minutes into the starting procedure saw us timing for a portstart at the pin end. It did not go well, we had to duck the other two boats and found us in the lee of the competitors on a tight reach to the weather mark. All boats squezzed together at the weather mark but we could not get inside and on the run with the gennaker we were slow again. There were still chances at the downwind gate mark which we rounded nicely and a new wind brought us back into the race. We should have tried to get inside the other two boats but as we stayed outside, we did not have many options on the last run. We were even past by the fourth boat and the mood was low. No place in the final against Oliver and friends.

The only good thing with this result had been our chance to watch the football (soccer for you guys) game, Germany vs. Sweden from the beginning. One eye pinned on the TVscreen and the other eye trying to watch the final race where also Sigrid (my former Bull crew) was sailing in a team of youngsters. Would they be able to run down Oliver in two final races? No chance for the other teams. Oliver, Marcus and Jan won the first race easily and they pulled a trick in the last race when they were under pressure. They sailed very low on the run, mainsail out on one side and the gennaker out on the other side, assisted by a long arm. This put them inside on the rounding and they had god speed on the beat, with Jan sitting inside the boat, low on the keel and only two working in the cockpit. Two first places! Well done Oliver. You and your team deserve the final in Berlin and I press thumbs for you to qualify for Valencia! The BMW Oracle Team is waiting to show you around.

The picture above shows the view from the clubhouse in Kiel-Möltenort out to the race area and the beginning of the "parade of sails" in the "Sailing City Kiel".

Kieler Woche 2006 (dt. & engl.)

Nachdem ich die letzten zwei Jahre nicht mehr aktiv an der Kieler Woche teilgenommen hatte, ergab sich für mich diese Woche eine gute Gelegenheit mal wieder zu starten. BMW hatte zum BMW Sailing Cup eingeladen. Eine Einladungsveranstaltung, die über regionale BMW Händler lief und die in der Kieler Innenförde auf Skippy 650 ausgetragen wird. Genau: ausgetragen wird, denn die Veranstaltung ist noch nicht abgeschlossen. Morgen kommen die Finalläufe. Mich hatte ein Freund und ehemaliger Mitsegler angemeldet, mit ihm und einer weiteren Crew im Sailing Cup zu starten. Ich sollte steuern, Markus und Sigrid an den Schoten. Sigrid mit viel Gennakererfahrung und viel Gefühl für dieses Segel. Leider kam es anders. Die 36 eingeladenen Segler wurden willkürlich und ohne für mich erkennbares Muster einander zugelost. Ich wurde Skipper Willi und Crew Walter als Crew zugelost. Willi segelte früher Finn Dinghy und hat jetzt mit ner X-99 ein sportliches Dickschiff, Walter hat mal mitgesegelt. Regatta sei eigentlich nicht so sein Ding. Gestern bekamen wir bei Starkwind (für die kleine Skippy sind 6 Bft schon Sturm) erstmal ne Packung. Wir führten an der Luvtonne und brachen auf der zweiten Kreuz ein und wurden dann im Ziel dritte. Von jeweils drei gestarteten Booten. Weitere Läufe gab es nicht. Heute kamen wir in den Hoffnungslauf und konnten uns mit zwei ersten Plätzen makellos direkt für das Halbfinale qualifizieren. Leider segelte der Kieler Lokalmatador Oliver mit einem ersten und einem vierten direkt in unsere Gruppe und das bedeutet morgen einen harten Kampf um einen Finalplatz.

PS: Wer wissen möchte, was sonst noch so los war auf der Kieler Woche, sollte den Link unten rechts nutzen: Segeln-erfrischend anders oder http://blog.ln-online.de/index.php/segeln.

Cruising last weekend
My foreign friends here are missing last weekends report. Not much to report as the cruising with „Samantha“ went smooth. We sailed to Denmark, a picturesque little place called Høruphav. Sunday on the way home in wind which ranged from 2-4 Bft, it happened that we passed a bigger boat, abt. 2 miles out from the harbour and that this manoeuvre seemed to disturb the skipper of the other boat very much. He trimmed in and started to race us. About 20 miles against the wind, into the mouth of the Schlei Fjord. There were no presents given on the way and we did tack on every 5-8 degree wind shift, as did the other skipper. When the breeze picked up he got a slight edge on us, when the breeze was around 2Bft it seemed that we could cope well with height and speed with his bigger boat which carried a tall and thin 3 spreader rig. It was good that he only carried his Nos. 3 (about 110%) which is about what we are carrying. „Samantha“ has wide, swept back spreaders, where a No 3 Jib is he maximum fitting into this rig. More or less like a Farr 40. But with running back stays. After all this sailing, which we enjoyed very much, both boats entered Schleimünde on an even level. Greetings and well wished were exchanged, as the couple on the other boat seemed to have enjoyed it as much as we did. A great race on a cruising Sunday.

Later on after having had a shower the lady from the other recognized K´s red hair and chatted us up. I went to see the boat and the skipper and he had been an old customer of mine, now retired from boatbuilding. His cruising boat definitely a „sheep in sheeps clothes“. Cold moulded in Wood Epoxy with a towering rig from one of the last „RUBIN´s“. Germany’s most known tally of racing yachts in the old IOR days. Lot’s to talk and a late night made us stay on the boat and drive to work early on Monday morning.

Racing in the „Kieler Woche“
This week the famous „Kiel Week“ is under way. I have the pleasure to race in it in the BMW Sailing Cup, an invitational race. We have managed to qualify for the half final tomorrow and I will report later on how it went. So far I can say, that yesterday we did not sail smart and came last. The second chance races today brought us back into the race as we were the only ones to score two firsts. If we keep our pace a place in the final is not out of reach.

Follow up:
The third day of the BMW Sailing Cup did not went according to the plan...at least for us. The wind did not cooperate in the morning, very light, very fluky and turning around the clock. This was good in one way as the saturday of the Kieler Woche is always the day of the big Squarerigger parade. And what a parade it had been this time. I think that nearly every squarerigger from this site of the pond was participating. "Gorch Fock" leading the parade with "Sedov", "Khersone" and many, many other ship following. Spectator boats by the hundreds and thousands of people lined up ashore to watch and wave the parade slowly sailing (motoring actually) out of the Kieler Förde. All these boats and ships would definitely stolen our wind if there would have been any. At 13.00h the wind slowly kicked in. Not stable in direction but sailable. We had to sit out two "races of hope", for the not qualified and the first half final. Our toughest competitor (as to my personell thinking) sailed a first and a fourth which brought him into our halffinal group of 3 boats. To make it short, we messed it up. Leading at the weather mark, we did not sail the boat well on the run, got passed by Oliver though he had sailed out 2 penalties. Helmsman and crew never found together as we should. Difficult for me not to steer this nervous boat and seeing our skipper moving so much around with the tiller. Handbreak on most of the time. Me being nervous as I did see some chances, also not being able to give my very best as crew. If you are sailing with a gennaker or spinnaker in very light air it is necessary to have the best communication and cooperation between trimmer and helmsman.

A lovely Summer Weekend in the North of Germany

This was to be a summer weekend without sailing. Not the best idea at all but due to commitments to my "mentor" Jack, who wanted to visit me during the weekend, it was something, I accepted easily. Jack wanted to observe how far we have proceeded with the "Flying Postman", a lightweight, hardchine dinghy, which he had built during the last two years. The boat is about 6,90m long, features double trapeze, a carbonmast and a gennaker on a 1.5m bowsprit. Can´t really wait until it hits the water but putting fittings into the right place, a new (yellow) paintjob, etc., takes time. I have delegated the jobs (boat prep) and the sailing of this "new boat in the family" to Daniel, who does a good and thorough job, preparing it. Will keep you posted also with a photo later.

As Jack and his friend Claus are early birds, we had done all the boat talk already at Saturday noon. Both guys, being in their early 70´s and fit like a "sportshoe", had brought their bikes to take a ride in this nice area. I wanted to show them around and got my bike out of the shed. Tyres had almost lost most of it´s air. Not being used for long. Anyway, I decided to ride around the "Schlei", the homewaters, where we usually go sailing if not being out in the Baltic Sea. The Schlei is a Fjord, connected to the sea and therefore we would be able to challenge for the America´s Cup with our homeclub...

The ride took us a couple of hours, through landscape which I had only seen from the water. (I have moved into this area seven years ago and besides working and going sailing I have only seen, what I knew already before). So beautiful. No wonder it is a holiday area. We had to use one chain-ferry, to cross the water, otherwise we would not be home before midnight. At the place where I took the photo, I was watching the Dinghy regatta for a while as my backside needed a break. There were 8 "Seggerling" dinghies out on the water, (the one, which I usually sail) but due to the banning of my mylar/kevlar sail, I am not allowed to participate anyway. Not going to purchase a white one! "Rubberdacron" one sailmaker friend called it the other day. As the dinghy has a big roach mainsail, (see photos on an article before) a white sail does not last very long on this powerful rig. (The Solo mentioned on one of the fellow bloggers site reminds me very much to the Seggerling... and I do not want to comment these great articles on "propercourse" and else "about taking your kids sailing". It would open a tin of worms.

Riding back via the castle kept my friends happy. You can also visit it: Google and Schloß Gottorf. In the Schloß Gottorf, they are keeping one of he oldest boats, the Nydam-Schiff, built 320 after Christus. You can go direct to learn about this early piece of craftmanship: Sorry my links did not work. Try Google and follow the path to the Nydam Schiff.

Sunday was another lovely day and I decided, late in the afternoon after all the family duties had been fulfilled, to take the old DIV II board (22cm high, 65cm wide, 390 cm long) for a ride. Still have one "Olympic sail" from one of our hopefuls, the fully battened Lechner type with 7,5qm. What a ride I had! Full hiking in the trapeze at max 3-3,5 Bft. Planing to windward. As the water was smooth the downwind ride was easy and I played it for 2 hours. Cannot be without sailing and promised to myself to take the board out more often.

Die Aalregatta findet zu Pfingsten statt

German/English
Die Aalregatta, ausgerichtet vom Segelclub Eckernförde ( http://www.segelclub-eckernfoerde.de/aalregatta/ ) war eine sehr gute Veranstaltung bei allerbestem Segelwetter und toller Beteiligung. Nach einer ruhigen Überführung von Maasholm nach Kiel (siehe Foto) briste es dann am Samstag und Sonntag ordentlich auf und die Rücküberführung fand wieder bei leichtem Wind und bestem Frühsommerwetter statt. Mehr hätte man auch auf Wunsch nicht bestellen können. Auf dem Wasser habe ich viel Spaß gehabt (ha ha, mit der Baumniederholerleine versucht ein Reff einzudrehen....) und auch an Land. Nette Leute. DN Eissegelfreunde getroffen, gute Party.

Nachdem sich die ORC Double-Hand-Gruppe am Samstag mit 3 Booten als uninteressant für uns herausgestellt hatte (Der Sieg wurde uns zu leicht gemacht) meldeten wir uns bei den sehr freundlichen Veranstaltern für Sonntag in der YS-Gruppe (32´bis 38´) ohne Spi an. 2 Freunde segelten dort auch 2-Hand mit ihrer Comfortina 35, der Rest allerdings mit voller Crew. Man gab uns die 2 Punkte Vergütung für ohne-Spi-segeln und dann gab es in dieser Gruppe mit 25 Teilnehmern richtigen Sport. Wobei ich in der zweiten Wettfahrt mit dem obigen Manöver eindeutig nicht zur Verbesserung des Ergebnisses beigetragen habe. Die "alte" 36db "Samantha" zeigte aber wieder einmal mehr, was für ein gutes Schiff sie doch ist und ein dritter Gesamtrang nach den beiden spannenden Wettfahrten war ein achtbares Ergebnis. Kerstin räumte dann noch ne große Silberplatte für die beste Steuerfrau ab (ist doch logisch, bei 2-Hand muß jeder mal steuern) und die schmucken Gläser vervollständigen die Sammlung.

Yes, we did race on the weekend but I had catched a cold straight on Tuesday after the long weekend and have not been in the mood to write a report since than. But promises are promises and here is what happened in a typical German yachtrace in the Baltic Sea. The so called "Aalregatta" (you get a smoked Eel after you finish the race) was always famous for the big boats within Kieler Woche. The opening race for a week of triangle, up-and-down and long distance races; earlier on for the national KR formula, than for the IOR and now for IMS. Things are changing fast in our world and due to sponsor commitment the race from the inner waters of the city of Kiel to Eckernförde (Ecktown) which has abt. 40sm depending on the course, had been cancelled by the Kieler Yacht Club. Many protests and the Sailing Club Eckernförde decided to have a separate series from the Kieler Woche still to be called "Aalregatta". A smart move, which had been underlined by 140 participating boats. The rating choosen had been ORC Club and Yardstick. This should allow for the "not so keen racers" without IMS certificates. It worked.

I had signed up in the double-hand-division together with ex-dinghy sailorette Kerstin. With my valid IMS certificate they put us in a group with 3 boats only, but did not inform beforehand. As usual with my 36ft boat we started under burgee nos. 2, second start. K, doing navigation thought that we had a -dinghy style- five minute starting interval, which I believed without check proving and off we went without a gun and other competitors. A good start but nobody followed. Hmmm, it took a while to register but than we turned around and had an even better start. 10 sec before the gun we turned close behind the mark, building speed and off we went. Abt. 40 boats of sizes up to 42feet with us. It was a shy reach, not the best of courses for a 110% jib but pulling like hell on the barberhaulers helped setting the jib and we defended our first position for a couple of miles. We dropped back before rounding the third mark due to loosing height against the boats closer to the shore but with some good calls we gained back position after position on the long beat up the Eckernförde Bay. The boat was rockin, the new tiller bearings worth their money. It has been the first time that I did read the winds/current in bay pretty well. Or had some pure luck. Changing the side in the middle part and getting the gusts from the right shore in a right hander paid. Our finish was excellent. First place in our small group with one hour ahead on corrected time. In the evening we met our DN iceboat friends from "Wilde Fünf", who lured us into their Yardstick group with abt. 31 participants. They were sailing with two people in their 35 footer, and finished 8th in the distance race. Not bad against the fully crewed boats. There was no compensation for sailing with two only but the competition was good. So we decided immediately to change into this group. The race organisers accepted our switch without hesitation.

Strong winds on Sunday and two races over a navigational course of abt. 14 sm. A good start in the first race and some nice shifts let us round the weathermark in first position, just... as I had to shoot the mark, we lost momentum and were rolled by two 42 footers. I tried to ride some sternwaves of bigger boats to catch up some valuable time but did not really succeed. This is something I definitely have to improve. Not being shy and really hang in there. Absolutely close to the lee transom of bigger boats wins you the minutes which are so easily lost in the traffic later on upwind. Shaking out the reef made me puzzle over the boat speed, which dropped from 6,40 (GPS) to 6,20 but we kept going as both being very exhausted from the tacking. We finished third in our new group. Some people could not cope with the starting sequence and had to be DSQ´d.

We started the second race without a reef but the strong wind gave us problems right from the beginning. We got lost in the traffic at the windward mark and tried hard on the first downwind run to gain an inside overlap. We did not succeed. We tried again on the next long reach and caught up two boats. Our friends were not far behind us. Coming round the leeward mark I decided to put in a reef. I grapped the wrong line and pulled with the help of the winch on the kickerrope, which did not help K. to steer high on the wind. After realizing my mistake (I sail this boat since 15 years!) and feeling so stupid about it, we had lost three boats. It took me a while to catch my breath after the exhausting manouvers and we could not gain a position. Luckily we did not loose another one. Our friends in the Comfortina 35 were falling back again. We scored a seventh place which brought us a third overall. A good result. Resumeé: I need to built up strength and condition. Both do we need to work on our navigational skills. Together we were a good team and had some fun during this racing weekend.

Bootsvorbereitung (Boat Prep) für die Double-Hand

Es gab diese Woche wirklich keine Zeit zum bloggen oder an die Vorbereitung zur Aalregatta (Double-Hand-Wertung in IMS2) zu denken. Jetzt ordne ich noch schnell meinen Schreibtisch und dann morgen früh zum Schiff. Der Wetterbericht ist nicht schlecht, morgen wird noch einen halben Tag geschraubt und die Regattasegel (D4 und UK) müssen an Bord geschleppt und dekoriert werden. Bei 5,20m Unterliekslänge und dem langen Spargel von "Samantha" immer ein Job. Besonders bei Wind. Catch you later. Frohe Pfingsten.

Off to prepare the boat for a double-hand-race on Saturday from Kiel to Eckernförde and some up-and downs on the Sunday on "Samantha", the Dehler 36db. It is the first time out this year and I am looking forward. Hope we can eliminate the mistakes and get the boat going. She deserves it. Such a nice boat. Monday is free and I do hope to report something exciting next week. Stay tuned.