Sailing for the fun of it
This was the motto Nik used to convince Lars and me to participate in the
Ascension Races run by his sailing club in Trier. He topped this off with
offering one boat out of his personal ISO dinghy fleet for the German ISO
Nationals as a part of the Europeans.
Saturday morning came and we found ourselves standing in front of the ISO “Mausetüte” (“mice bag”). Both of us had never been on an ISO and we only sailed together twice before. So we set ourselves the goals to give back the boat in one piece, not to capsize and – before all – to have fun!
The sailing club was offering breakfast, but we preferred to spend the time getting used to the cockpit layout and all the ropes. Sebastian would be crewing and weighs in at considerably more than the 78 kg threshold, so Nik explained to us that we would be sailing without the wings. The resulting reduction in width decreases the righting moment, but at the same time the weight goes down by 15 kg. This way the differences in overall weight and righting moment of different crews are compensated for.
After the briefing the three groups Pirat (traditional German double handed hiking dinghy with kite), ISO and Yardstick launched. Thanks to Nik’s never ending efforts 10 crews from Italy, the Netherlands, England and Germany battled it out on the water. Unfortunately we usually were quite a bit behind the leading pack so we cannot report what happened at the front. We
did spot that ISOs CAN capsize, though :).
Mitigating the Pirate dinghies as well as the commercial barges made things interesting while the wind increased. Every barge had a safety boat leading it to warn the crews. All means of “propulsion” (pumping, paddling, etc.) were allowed to increase the distance to the barges if required, but only strictly towards the river banks.
The race officer had planned for up to 5 races as the wind forecast for Sunday did not look promising. After 4 races we were completely done and ready to go ashore anyway, but fortunately the race officer realized that it was getting late and skipped the 5th race.
After enjoying a shower in the nice and well looked after club facilities we joined the delicious BBQ. An friendly get-together with many tips, stories and plans for future races unfolded. We as only “temporary” ISO sailors felt very welcome.
Sunday started in the club house with a breakfast variety that matched 4 star hotels.
The race officer send us out and we had some opportunity to work on our light airs boat handling. Eventually there was not enough wind to start a race, though.
The club members running the galley continued to be busy in the meantime and offered a soup for lunch and ice cream as dessert. When we left the club premises after the price giving the wind of course had picked up enough to allow for proper sailing again.
Video of event here:
| Rang | Land | Segel_Nr | Yachtname | Steuermann/Vorsch. | Club | 1.W | 2.W | 3.W | 4.W | 7.W | 8.W | Ges Pkt. |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | UK | 1003 | Tinky Winky | John Gill Juliet Daniels |
RYA RYA |
1 | (3) | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 7,0 |
| 2 | UK | 845 | Serenity | Colin Snooke Kris Rudolph |
LSC PST |
2 | 1 | 3 | 3 | (7) | 7 | 16,0 |
| 3 | UK | 814 | Cousin Trestec | Bob Ladell Mario Matteo Andriolo |
KGSC CST |
(5) | 5 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 3 | 18,0 |
| 4 | IT | 1200 | Killer Queen | Marco Mociardini Cataudella Dario |
CST CST |
3 | 4 | 2 | 4 | (5) | 5 | 18,0 |
| 5 | NL | 1160 | Nicolas Carette Maarten Mortier |
WVP WVP |
4 | 2 | 4 | (5) | 4 | 4 | 18,0 | |
| 6 | GER | 1558 | Old Lady | Nik Rudolph Petra Grönfeldt |
PST PST |
(7) | 6 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 6 | 31,0 |
| 7 | NL | 1024 | Isohorny | Ray Willemse Paul Passier |
WVP WVP |
6 | 7 | 6 | 7 | (DNC) | DNC | 39,0 |
| 8 | GER | 1 | Mäuschen | Pierre Kieffer Yves N.N |
SCL SCL |
(DNC) | DNC | DNC | DNC | 1 | 1 | 41,0 |
| 9 | GER | 558 | Mausetüte | Lars Wegner Sebastian Lienkamp |
SCNS SCNS |
8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | (DNC) | DNC | 45,0 |
| 10 | NL | 1001 | ZaZa | Edwin van Walraven Rutger Holtzer |
WVP WVP |
9 | 9 | 9 | (DNC) | DNC | DNC | 53,0 |
| 11 | GER | 1719 | Player | Marec Cierzan Andre Friedrich |
PST SCL |
(DNC) | DNC | DNC | DNC | 8 | 8 | 55,0 |
| 12 | GER | 719 | Playstation | Peter Hardt Jakob Hardt |
PST PST |
10 | (DNC) | DNF | DNC | DNC | DNC | 62,0 |