Saturday, September 21, 2013

J/22 Alster Cup Report from Hamburg, Germany.

(Hamburg, Germany)- As reported by Ingo Huter on her J/22 GER 1364- "On Saturday at 8:00 AM the day started with an hour of driving to Hamburg with our J/22 being towed behind us.  After we arrived, we managed to rig and launch the boat in time to still enjoy being served breakfast at the Hamburg Segel-Club!  Thank goodness, we now had enough coffee and energy to go sailing all day.  It was great to see eleven boats attending, with ten from the local sailing clubs.

J/22s sailing Alster Lake, Hamburg, Germany
The weather for the regatta was very changeable, from sun to rain to clouds to no wind, then it all changes again!  Sailing on Alster Lake is a special experience. The wind is gusty and unpredictable for me. On the water much was going on. Junior Folkboats were sailing and we had migratory birds flying all around us, including our car! Also, sailing near to us was the Deutsche Segel Bundesliga match race regatta where some of our friends from other sailing club were sailing J/70s.

We had many exciting, close races where the fleet would all finish in less than a minute! At the end of three races we were satisfied with third place. After sailing we enjoyed the buffet and the beautiful view of the lake.

On Sunday, winds were actually forecast to be up to 22 kts!  Once again we good 3-5 m/sec winds and we managed to have two beautiful races.  Overall, we finished in third place. Congratulations to the first two boats, which had much more consistent performances!  Despite the narrowness of the HSC site on land, we could all haul our boats on the club's crane and park nearby.

The effort we made paid off again and we had a strenuous workout indeed! But, it was also a nice way to spend a weekend sailing with friends.  We hope to see you all at the next J/22 regatta soon!"