Trip to 505 worlds
So I decided to do 5o5 worlds this year because I wanted to experience international big fleet sailing, and I love sailing 5o5s and when I e-mailed my partner in crime Andreas Kindlimann about the possibility of doing the regatta not only was he enthusiastic about it, but he also was able to get us a boat. And so Team Ötzi was born.
Andreas organized the boat and accomodations in the interim between when we decided to do the regatta in May and the actual date of the regatta in August. The boat is a Duvoisin which was rigged for the old 5 meter spinnaker and had 20 kg of uninstalled corrector weight. The owner never races the boat in 5o5 fleets...only in handicap fleets, so even though the boat had been measured once, it was not necessarily rules compliant, particularly with no correctors installed.
I took flight on a sunny Friday afternoon on Air France (because they have better food than Delta).
When I landed in Zürich, we went immediately to Andreas house where Mrs. Kindlimann made us a phenomenal lunch. Team Ötzi really likes to eat good food. The weather was terrible, and we had trouble getting the boat ready. The plan was to leave in the evening and drive all night across Germany with our destination of Warnemünde. Thank god for german keyboards which have all the funny characters. Unfortunatelz, the y and z characters are exchanged, so that makes it reallz difficult for me to tzpe properlz. But I digress.
We eventually got the boat all ready on the trailer and set off on our Odyssey. As you can see in the picture, our new Mercedes turned out to be a slightly used Peugeot.
But I digress. We were still able to make 100 mph with a trailer. And this worked fine until we got near Berlin where the police told us we were only allowed to drive 45 mph with a trailer. Andreas was driving and was fortunately able to get us off with only a warning for 35 euros. This was doubly fortunate because we didn't actually have the insurance for the trailer with us. Big bummer. But the cops seem to think it was cool that we were going to a regatta in Warnemünde, and I think they let us off easy. I thought about taking their picture but decided they might not think it very funny.
After 16 hours in the car, we arrived at the sailing club in Warnemünde. Tired, sore, but very happy to be here. We were greeted by many old friends and immediately started to make new ones. We set to work putting the boat together for a test sail on tuesday before the first day of the pre-worlds. And so the incessant list making began.
Andreas organized the boat and accomodations in the interim between when we decided to do the regatta in May and the actual date of the regatta in August. The boat is a Duvoisin which was rigged for the old 5 meter spinnaker and had 20 kg of uninstalled corrector weight. The owner never races the boat in 5o5 fleets...only in handicap fleets, so even though the boat had been measured once, it was not necessarily rules compliant, particularly with no correctors installed.
I took flight on a sunny Friday afternoon on Air France (because they have better food than Delta).
When I landed in Zürich, we went immediately to Andreas house where Mrs. Kindlimann made us a phenomenal lunch. Team Ötzi really likes to eat good food. The weather was terrible, and we had trouble getting the boat ready. The plan was to leave in the evening and drive all night across Germany with our destination of Warnemünde. Thank god for german keyboards which have all the funny characters. Unfortunatelz, the y and z characters are exchanged, so that makes it reallz difficult for me to tzpe properlz. But I digress.
We eventually got the boat all ready on the trailer and set off on our Odyssey. As you can see in the picture, our new Mercedes turned out to be a slightly used Peugeot.
But I digress. We were still able to make 100 mph with a trailer. And this worked fine until we got near Berlin where the police told us we were only allowed to drive 45 mph with a trailer. Andreas was driving and was fortunately able to get us off with only a warning for 35 euros. This was doubly fortunate because we didn't actually have the insurance for the trailer with us. Big bummer. But the cops seem to think it was cool that we were going to a regatta in Warnemünde, and I think they let us off easy. I thought about taking their picture but decided they might not think it very funny.
After 16 hours in the car, we arrived at the sailing club in Warnemünde. Tired, sore, but very happy to be here. We were greeted by many old friends and immediately started to make new ones. We set to work putting the boat together for a test sail on tuesday before the first day of the pre-worlds. And so the incessant list making began.
posted by J Bergquist at 8:40 AM
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