How it all began

Inspired by the great Tillerman, (see link to Propercourse on the right side) I have written a little story about the beginning of my sailing. I have only realized by now that I am a little late but there are maybe some readers out there, who might enjoy this. Also my THANKS to Tillerman to keep us communicating, especially in this winter time without a boat in soft water or on hard water.

Here it goes:
Coming from a non sailing family I caught the bug by watching sailboats on the river Elbe as a teenager. Sometimes a friend took me in an old steel dinghy. Building paper kites I learned about the wind. Did start only when I was 23 and had earned some money to buy my own boat in 1970/1. A Flying Dutchman. G-500. An old boat. The racers had G-931 and above. A change in shape had taken place and the "expert sailors" laughed at me, when I showed up at Kiel Week.

It was also difficult to find a club without having two bailsmen. Read every book in the trade. Trimmed a lot ashore. Participated in races though the boat was old and outdated. Overhauled it and painted it and sold it and did the same with FD G-1057, my second boat. Having my third brand new FD, G-1308, built by Hein in 1974 and yes, a sistership to the famous G-1288 from the Diesch brothers, who won Gold in Kingston in 1976. I practised with them but only managed to become no. 12 in the long German ranking list at those times. And yes, I remember a phone conversation with Ian Murray (?) who wanted to order a Hein boat and I tried to help with the German/English, uuuhps Aussie language, when Uli Libor (FD Olympic Silver in Accapulco) was not available.... My first win came in autumn 1974 in Berlin. Oh, I love this silver plate, which showed me: I can do it. Today I am not putting any pressure on my 9 year old boy who does not like boats at all, though I would love to see him sailing and to tinker with his boats as I love to do, still today.
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smooth sailing
Manfred
_/) _/)

New kid on the blog...

Having had not much time going into blogland lately, I was pleased to see a comment by Burki in my blog. He seemed to like the idea of blogging so much that he started 3 blogs. One is named "thefridge" , hmm, what does it mean. I thought actually, it is named the "fridge door" and maybe he wants to tell us about his unhappy days on a Laser. One must know that he has turned into a speed windsurfer, though I know that he had been one of the best crews one could find in Germany. Not only on the wire of a 14 footer but also in Keelboats where he sailed with Jochen Schümann (of Alinghi fame) in a couple Match Races. I think that he also won the Champion of Champions Series in a PIRAT (like the Snipe) dinghy some years ago.

Burki has changed into a Speedsurfer and he showed me some interesting devices and computer programms about the way these Speedsurfers are listing and reporting their data on to the Internet. Maybe you find some information on his pages, which I am going to link. The windsurfers are only racing against the clock (should I say GPS?), whilst we sailors are normally sailing against another or other boats. I have the feeling that we can learn from the Speedsters, from what Burki had shown to me. There had not been enough time at his last visit and I do hope that we can spend more time when he is over here, in the North of Germany. Or maybe, as Burki suggested, in spring 2007 at the Cote á Azur. If I am not able to manage the linking today, goto: http://c3-thefridge.blogspot.com/