Bad Zwischenahn open German Champs

The german fleet is thriving! We had 26 boats on the start line at the Open German championships this weekend, at Bad Zwischenahn. Many newcomers, or people re-entering from the attraction of foiling.

I wanted to do well at this regatta (been living up to this since juni), and I did. For my current level that is. When I got back, had unpacked my boat at the club, and got everything sorted again, I noticed that there was a huge big enormous grin on my face. Didn’t need a car mirror and lipstick to figure that one out. I saw yesterday I made a 12th place. Quite happy with that. I left some “veterans” behind me, but also have to tolerate some hot new guys above me. Considering I was in the last third of the fleet last year I guess I’m making progress.

I took the friday off to fiddle a bit with the boat, and to take travel easy. When lifting my boat on the car I had to wait at my home lake for 15 minutes for someone to help me lift. A lady passed by, and she wanted to help, but she couldn’t lift my boat higher then the car mirror. So we abandoned that attempt, and I waited for someone else. Travel was easy, just follow the higway for a few hours, no traffic, no masts or other bits falling off the car this time.

At the club I was pleasantly surpised to meet 4 new mothists who were already rigged and ready to get sailing (Christian, Felix, Harald and Michi). Felix helped me with the tramps, so the boat was ready very quickly. I wanted to get my new sticker job on the boat done, and of course I couldn’t help to chat with everyone. so by the time I was ready to sail in what seemed like a perfect force 4 wind, it had gotten already too late.

Christian and Carlo didn’t seem to think so and they went out. Christian brought his very very green boat over from the UK, and wanted to try his new wand, that he converted from a middle (Mistress) position to a side position (Prowler, Bladerider). Carlo just wanted to sail. Unfortunately the wind had died, so there wasn’t any flying going on anymore.

Then dinner, with loads of fish. Carlo and Christian saved the evening by getting loads of Booze from the local supermarket. People were arriving, and we saw lots of new faces.

Then racing. The lake was very good. Round, quite wide, with the startship in the middle, and fixed buoys in a circle through the lake. The course to the buoys was marked out on the startship, and the guys sailing in front just had to find the right marks. But it’s hard to sail with 2 knots of wind. I didn’t really mind, as I am used to those conditions

I messed up my first start, as I was certain that there was more wind on the left side of the field, and I chose more wind, instead of a bias of the line to the right. Unfortunately the wind died, and a new puff rolled in from the right, ups. So after the start I tacked back, found the wind, and found myself somewhere in the last third of the fleet. It was very exciting to see how everyone was doing, and how did I stack up against the people I knew from earlier regatta’s? Not too bad, as after rounding the top mark, I was in company of Sven and Michael, and we had about the same speed. Still somehting happened, as near the gybe mark Peter Kohlhoff (who has just bought a Bladerider), came from behind, made speed by pointing up, passed above me and gybed in front of me. Nice move Peter! I’ll copy that move one onto someone some other time Sven and Michael were rounded 30 metres in front. I saw wind coming from the left, and a made the silly mistake to move to that wind, and not go the direct route to the mark. After 20 metres I saw my mistake, so I gybed and took my loss, before doing more damage. I have to stop this tendence to take flyers sometime.

Upwind after that was interesting. There were huge gaps on the lake. I got passed by Leo, Juryk, Jens Schoenberg, and… Then to find some wind and a very nice groove going up to the finish. I made things difficult for Jens, who had been before me a long way. Leo and Juryk had both fell into a gap on the left respectively the right side of the field, so I managed to pass them back.
Unfortunately we didn’t do any more races that day, because, well. There wasn’t any wind really. I wouldn’t have mind just to keep racing. As I think we could have done a few more drifting regattas on that day. We come to sail don’t we?

We had a very pleasant evening meeting with the German moths. The agenda for next year will be packed full as usual. With Uwe trying his best to tone down the enthousiasm, and keeping a fair schedule. With some new Moths (Harald, Carlo, Michi) in the south of Germany, we now try to get back some good regatta’s more south. But we couldn’t solve the discussion whether there was more wind in the south or in the north of Germany. Of course that is because the best wind is in Holland. It was great to see many new faces, and lots of enthousiasm with the german fleet. The class is doing very well in Germany! I’ll do my best to make this happen in Holland too. After some more wine and lemon wodka it was time to sleep.

For sunday I changed my game plan a bit. On saturday I had decide to follow Sven, stay in the middle of the field, and make few tacks. On sunday I decided to follow Sven, sail to the puffs, and thus tack more. There was some more wind before the start, so we could foil back and forth through the 420 fleet and show them what flying is about. I had a nice fly-by at 2 minutes to go before the 420’s start. I flew the whole way, some 50 metres above their start line so they could all see. Show-off!

I got away clean in the second race, but was late at the gun (I have to re-study the start signals, ups). Sven sailed in front of me (as planned but I was keeping up in speed and height. I even got foiling upwind! It was just a 100 metres. But in these 100 metres of flying I moved to the front of the pack, nice. When flying, I pointed just a few degrees lower than in lowrider mode, but with double the speed (10 knots instead of five).

But, the wind died again, so foiling fun was over. The lowriders had a slight advantage, and there seemed to be an advantage for bolt-rope sails over pocket luff sails as well. Also there was some wild flapping of mainsails about (???). I tried to be discrete in pumping, moving just a little bit Again I found myself with Leo, Jenzz, Juryk, Randolf going downwind. Leo and Jenzz was a slight bit quicker (damn!) to pass me downwind. Maybe I should have duelled with them, but I chose not to, and keep clear air. I’ve seen too many boats duelling, with them both losing out to a another third boat. The third boat was Randolf. Randolf brought the wind back from behind, but I could hold him off with a metre to go before the finish. Of this group, Juryk was just faster downwind and sailed off.

We had another short race, going only upwind, with a small reach. I had pumped myself up, to do extra well for this one. It was hard, as the wind was rather boring, and we had been on the water for quite a bit. But, with such a short while to go, you could get a freaky good result up. My start wasn’t good though, and other people were just faster. There was a nice moment before the upwind mark though. I was trying to hold off Carlo, and Micha was just in front of me. I tacked early to see if I could lay the mark, and maybe profit from a shift. With some 50 metres to mark, I saw I wouldn’t make it. Puff came rolling in from the right. Jenzz was in it. From Jenzz I saw it was a header. So I tacked in the puff, got lifted to the mark in breeze. Puff died down to 0.5 knot. Tacked again. Just squeezed inside the mark, after the mark rounding I had to gybe from the wind disturbance off the mark (what???). But, mark rounded. I must have made Randolf unhappy. He went waaaay to the right, to converge again at the mark. He was 100 metres in front of me, and must have wanted revenge from the first race. Somehow I got going and passed him on the reach. Antoher unlucky man was Juryk. He capsized with 50 metres to go to the finish, and hurt himself bigtime. He asked for a rescue boat to come, but he got going again to still finish.

So, what happened at the front of the fleet? The win went convincingly to Philipp Meurer, (the man who’s weight is counted in a single digit). He sails the first Frizz built, a 10 year old lowrider! The boat I had before was a Frizz too, a very fast boat in light airs. But the sailor makes the results, and with 3 wins in a row Phipp was a convincing winner. Second place went to Harald, who scored only 2nd places. He has been german champ in the moth before, and is now re-entering the class. Not bad to score a 2nd for his first moth regatta in a long time.

Further it was great to see Felix and Christian do so well. Felix has just started mothing since 4 weeks, Christian had his boat 2 weeks. Felix made the 8th spot at the regatta, and did great. It took me two years before I could get around the course decently in those winds, and these guys are doing this in two weeks. Well done guys.

So, after a good regatta, a nice new moth t-shirt, many new friends, training opportunities for winter set. I found this big grin on my face. Not surprising is it?

Photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/wildetukker/sets/72157602422262349/

Results: http://www.seglerinfo.de/cgi-bin/ergebnis07.cgi?97007101

Fred and Felix also have reports on their Blogs!

Felix’s report

Manfred’s report

My Regatta evaluation of Bad Zwischenahn

PS LOL, I just saw the blog hit 99 views on the monday after Bad Zwischenahn. Sorry guys, I was late )) And oh, while at it, will the people that enter while searching for Ruslan Karaev please go away? This is a sailing blog. I like K-1 kickboxing, and he’s a great fighter, but I have nothing interesting to say about him

PS2 Ralf did great to take third place, but we knew he was good already.