What a trip to get to the first training with the brand new Archimbault 35 to Warnemünde in Germany. I took a car-plane-train-car-ferry journey to the brand new 5* Marina Hohe Düne where the boat was situated. It took me the whole day to get there from the south of Europe, but it was worth it. 25-30 knots of wind directly from West were still blowing at 10 p.m., but the owner wanted to go out and start the trip to Kiel, around 100nm upwind - good wind!

Madeleine and I somehow managed with the owner that it was better to sleep a little bit and wait for the wind to calm down a little. It was 3 a.m. when we got up, but there was still too much wind. After a short walk to the lighthouse we all decided to try some tacks and see which course can we hold with a storm jib and motor, because the cevlar sails we did not want to damage.

We were not that slow, doing 5-7knots, it depended of the waves which are very high and short in the Baltic see, because the water is so shallow. After about one and half hour we had to gave up. Kiel seemed FAR away and participating at the regatta even farer. We were all sad, but it was important to keep the crew and the boat safe, as we have a race to sail in a month! As we came back, we lied down a little and waited until 11 a.m., our last chance to get to Kiel. All attempts were in vain!

A new plan had to be developed! We arranged all the girls to come up to Warnemünde and have a good training! The rest of the day we enjoyed on the sandy beach, walking around for kilometres and having a bath, brrrrr, how cold it was! The next day we were preparing the boat and enjoying Warnemünde. On the weekend Inken, Kirsten and Ina came, so we begun with some training. The wind? Still 6Bf, going down to 5. And it was by the end of the day so less wind that we were really jumping on those choppy waves with no boat speed at all. But we tried before all our sails, did some good maneuvers and were happy with the day.

The last day we started with less wind very early in the morning, for I had to get back to the South of Europe, to Porec. After a black cloud that reached us around noon, we had to get the storm jib up again and shorten the main sail. All over wet, but enjoying the warm water... Around 2 p.m. we packed our wet clothes and off we went, again ferry-car-plane-car, but with a slight problem inbetween: the plane was out of order, so I had to wait for over 2 hours in Hamburg and was late in Venice. Nevertheless, a really good training! It was nice seeing the old crew and exploring the new boat! I hope, we will have some good days on the Baltic Sea in few weeks.

As now my crew is completed, I would like to present it to the audience:

Inken Braunschmidt, Skipper

Melanie Aalburg, Co-Skipper and main sail trimmer

Petra Kliba-Schmidt, Tactician and genua/spi trimmer

Ina Symhardt, second trimmer

Madeleine Krüger, Pit

Frauke Windolph, Mast

Anne Bastgen, Bow

Ute Wagner, Bow

 

Greetings, Petra