What a week of sailing for the “Kleine Brise.”, my Albin Express.
On Tuesday, June 16, in Haddeby, Gabi and I sailed in a fairly large field without a spinnaker but with the large jib and were able to compete at the front of the pack in the prevailing southwest wind. The result was a first-place finish after a very good start. A good start into the week.
On Wednesday at the SSC beer can regatta, a strong wind picked up as the evening went on, with gusts up to 5 Bft and Gabi and I were again sailing with the large jib but, unfortunately, were over-powered. Malin, my regular crew from the youngster program in the local sailing club had asked for an exemption at the last minute, which seemed like the right decision given the light afternoon winds. Far from it. We couldn’t really get the boat going. Especially since I’d also completely botched the start. I failed to notice a wind shift to the left during the pre-start phase, so I started right next to the boat, barely made it across the line, and the boats downwind at the mark quickly turned on to starboard bow and were ALL ahead of us at the windward mark. Wulf Dippel won the regatta and has regained the lead in the standings, which we kept for a while. We finished second to last—8th out of nine boats, the only boat sailing without a spinnaker.
On Saturday, June 20, 2026, I sailed the 50th Anniversary Regatta in Haddeby with Kerstin. A lot of effort had gone into organizing this event in advance, and that was rewarded with 33 participants divided into two groups. The weather was incredibly good. Our start went very well. We were the second boat to reach the windward mark.
Really good start as first boat over the line
We hoisted the spinnaker, though once again I hadn’t properly secured both sheets. The spinnaker was set perfectly, but the sheets were chafing against the rail, which was kind of annoying. Then the upper batten wouldn’t flip over in the light wind, so I tried to correct it with the boom. In the process, I hit my forehead with the boom and cut myself, causing a bleeding wound. Now we needed emergency first aid. The yacht that had overtaken us wanted to call the DGzRS for help, but Kerstin got the situation under control with a large band-aid. By then, it seemed like all the larger boats with spinnakers had overtaken us. We had two long laps to sail, which should have been an advantage for catching up given the long upwind legs. But it felt like we just couldn’t get the boat going. On the first upwind leg in the narrow stretch, we lost at least a hundred meters on the wrong left side to the fleet ahead of us, which included Gitta (X-79) and the H-35 boats. Things went better on the second upwind leg. We found a rhythm and caught up to the fleet of “big boats,” though the small H-boat SVENKA—which had been far ahead of us at the start—was also sailed very well. No wonder—at the awards ceremony, Helle Clausen emerged as the helmsman and won the anniversary regatta with the regular SVENKA crew. We were rewarded with a second-place finish, which Kerstin and I hadn’t really expected. We rounded out the evening at a lovely harbor festival with nice people, a great barbecue, and a fitting awards ceremony. We wrapped up the evening with a fantastic barbecue and a well-deserved awards ceremony.
The little red spinnaker being rolled by most of the bigger boats.
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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