An IOR classic
Feeder race BREMERHAVEN - HELGOLAND
Almost the most exciting thing about this first race of our NORDSEEWOCHE was whether Erhard would manage to get on board in time. He travelled directly from St. Malo from his previous sailing assignment and - unfortunately as expected - got stranded in train delays and missed connections, so that he didn't make it on Friday and spent a long night in partly rolling and partly standing trains. But a good cards player never has more scores than he needs, and so Erhard managed to get on board exactly 15 minutes before departure on Saturday morning at just before 08:00, together with the fresh bread rolls that we were able to pick up at the Lloyd Marina.
There was again little wind in the forecast for the race, and for our taste the participation of competitors also seemed too low. Only six yachts had registered for the reace from Bremerhaven. Some boats from Bremerhaven had probably already chosen the ‘Early Bird’ as a feeder race from Cuxhaven to Helgoland on Friday evening, but even taking this into account it was my impression that there was (too) little participation from Bremerhaven for such an event.
The six starters were then divided into two groups of three boats each (ORCC D on the one hand and ORCi A/B and ORCC C on the other), with SNIFIX clearly the largest boat in the ORCi A/B and ORCC C groups. Under these conditions, it was to be expected that we would at least sail ‘line honours’ to the front - but far from it.
In view of the weak wind forecast, already at the helmsmen's meeting on Friday evening it was announced to start earlier next morning than published before and the startline was moved further downstream River Weser from its traditional location in front of the Seebäderkaje quay to the end of the container quay in the hope of finding better wind there, free of the large steamers. When the small group off boats gathered there, however, it was still very flat and so the order was given to motor further downstream together with the starting boat in order to stay within the tidal and time window for the race and to mark the starting line when a sufficient draught for sailing has established. This was the case quite far out on the Outer Weser, and we started at 11.30 a.m. in 8-9 knots of wind from the NE with the ebbtide still running.
However, it became obvious already here that SNIFIX could not match the speed of the brand new lightweight KEENA (an exciting one-off design by Judel/Vrolijk/Mathias Bröker, built by Greenboats) in these conditions, and could only roughly keep up with ZAPPALOTTE and VOLLGUT, although both boats were noticeably smaller than SNIFIX. With a little more wind, we pulled away slightly, and when it died down a little, the others caught up again.
Laterthe wind shifted back a little and became more constant, the route to the "red rock", how HELGOLAND is called too, became a cruise at around 9 knots TWS in beautiful conditions without waves. Now it became more interesting and confusing. KEENA chose her tack on the right hand side of the track further east, but obviously stayed ahead. SNIFIX made good progress further to the west in the center of the track to Helgoland. We achieved a well upwind performance but we were still a little under-rigged with the G2 in these conditions.
ZAPPALOTTE, on the other hand, chose the left hand side of the track further to the west of us. As she moved further and further away from us to the west, she obviously travelled less height than we did, which was also confirmed by our AIS observations. In the centre between the two, we were running higher than ZAPPALOTTE and this lead us to teh conclusion over time, that we were ahead of her. VOLLGUT sailed roughly the same course as us in the centre, but was now slower than SNIFIX in the somewhat more constant and fresher wind.
When we finally headed towards buoy 1 in the Helgoland fairway, we were somewhat surprised that ZAPPALOTTE had managed to overtake us to leeward with her deeper strokes to the west of us and overcompensate for her lower height on the wind with more speed. She obviously achieves her best windward speed on deeper courses than we did, as we had always steered with our VMG in view. ZAPPALOTTE now approached on starboard bow at a brisk pace and crossed our keel line well ahead of us. It also went well for KEENA, although we had the impression that she had made more way to windward than necessary. she was of the "first ship home", ZAPPALOTTE then in second place and SNIFIX ‘Line Honours’ in third place. In our group we were third but also last, Rated according to APH for all six starters we achieved the 5th place out of 6.
Despite the delay of the start and the shortening of the course this race turned into a beautiful day of sailing with an exciting finish, and in Helgoland we found a berth alongside the beautiful X-43 ABACUS from Hamburg as the 14th boat of the pack. Climbing over 26 fences for a beer ashore keeps you young. due to the persistent easterly winds, i.e. wind from the shore, lying in such large packets was no problem this year,
After the beer, we quickly took a walk to the "Oberland", i.e. HELGOLAND's upper level to enjoy the view in the beautiful late sunlight, because our crew fellow Erhard, although a long and well-travelled sailor, had never been to Helgoland before, So of course he had to take the opportunity to enjoy this view. We then turned to the culinary delights on offer in front of the NORDSEEWOCHE marquee at the harbour and finally had a moderate nightcap on board, because in the morning the helmsman's briefing for the race RUND HELGOLAND was already scheduled for 07:30 o'clock..