Jump of the sailing meter

5 more days of sailing and not much time to report. Therefore just for the records. Day 21 past by uneventful with some good Moth sailing on a Saturday. 4 hours on the water killed all my energy and on Sunday I was exhausted and did not move much, besides driving the Sportsboat down to the marina, rigging it and going for a nice quiet sail together with K. Pure luck that I had forgotten to load up the gennaker, therefore I did not have to fiddle too much with sheets whilst K. was helming. Day 23 had been the Wednesday last week when I took the DIV II board from the depth of my windsurfing gear garage. The long carbon mast to be used for the big sail had been used as a flag pole lately and I had to recover it from the roof. A couple of boats lined up for an unofficial beer can race and I took the chance to see how it goes. Managed to be first on the weather mark and than got passed by everyone on the long downwind when the wind decreased. One strong gust took me by surprise and I was not able to steer the thing straight downwind, instead of reaching 90° away from the mark. The upwind leg was uneventful as I was all alone at the back of the fleet. But it was fun and I do hope that it was not the only day out on the DIV II this year.

Day 24 had been some Moth training in Berlin before the regatta started the next day on the Stienitzsee. Training is a bit over expressing the hour of sailing up and down and trying to foil. There was just not enough wind for me and after I had de-rigged the boat, the wind turned up a couple of knots and some other Mothies had a good evening, getting on foils from gust to gust. Saturday turned out to be a good day on this lake. The sun was out the wind allowed for some good airtime. The usual suspects at the front of the fleet of 10 Mothies. Some breakdowns as usual, this time also a broken finger. I completely spoiled my first race due to not having an idea about the start line and the course laid out. I completely misinterpreted what had been said during the skippers meeting. Some twist in my head? Everyone was long gone before I figured out how to get around this course with the very short upwind leg and the long reaches. Race 2 went better for me and in race 3 I managed to be first boat to weather and able to hold this position a long way down the course until sinking in and Sven passing me on foils. A bad jibe later and I was back in third. This had also been my final result after 5 races. The regatta was finished on the saturday and after a good barbeque we left the Stienitzsee with some good memories. Now a little more training and than see you all back in Horsens, DK at the Moth Europeans. The unofficial entry list with pics and other information assembled by Doug Culnane you can find here: http://www.moth-sailing.org/europeans/2009_dk.xml