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.