When I saw the announcement for the RS Games last year it immediately piqued my interest - I’m not sure if it was the mention of all the parties, the location in Travemünde or the sailing! I suggested to David, my husband and crew, that we should attend - he was immediately sceptical but a conversation with Stuart at Better Sailing convinced him we should go. David and I upgraded our Vago for a RS500 18 months ago.
The Games were taking place in northern Germany (coinciding with Travemünde Woche) - so there were a few logistics involved. The biggest issue was getting our boat there. Whilst we’re equipped to tow it did seem quite a faff, especially as we decided to do a bit of extra touring around as we were going all of that way. Anyway, Vince mentioned to me that “Spanner” had asked him if we wanted our boat transporting as he had a double stack trailer. We accepted the offer. Plain sailing we thought! Yes, our boat got there, but a few days before we read the race notice - we’d never sailed in what I’ll now call a “proper” race before - I thought what we did at KGSC was, but a European championships turns out to have a bit more to it - as many of you will all know. It turned out that our sail numbers had been placed on in the wrong place - there was a frantic peel and hoping they would re-stick in the right place, fortunately they did. We also found that we needed GBR letters. At this stage there was no time to get them mailed and after a phone round no one had any. Panic stations! Fortunately Spanner came to our rescue again and brought some letters out for us.
Our boat arrived and we set to work on getting it rigged. At this stage some of the other British 500 sailors realised we were rookies and came and pointed out issues and offered useful advice.
The first day of racing arrived. We got to the beach early for the briefing - quite a few bits went over our heads - what’s that about the Uniform flag? The briefing was in English but we didn’t necessarily follow it all! Anyway our strategy was to keep out of everyone else’s way and follow the fleet.
The wind on day one was seeing gusts into the high 20s which we thought was too much for us. We’d decided not to go out but Spanner convinced us we should give it a go as if we could do just one race then we’d get a score on the board. We started to prepare our boat when Michiel, RS commercial director and an enthusiastic 500 sailor. came and gave us a hand. He said we should change the position of the shroud pins which whilst it would give us less rig tension would mean we could pull on shed loads more kicker and depower the rig - who knew?! Well I guess most of you guys do but it was all news to us!
So we launched our boat and made an attempt to head to our course, “Charlie” which was some distance from the beach. After our fifth capsize and with the Coastwatch boat following us we decided to head home. It was a wise decision - four masts were broken that day - RS had only brought two spares along as that was considered a reasonable number by everyone there.
Day two arrived. Another windy day. We got ready early, took our brave pills, and got on the water. Spanner told us that it took him about 40 minutes to get to the course, we were closer to an hour. The starting sequence was a bit of a mystery still, especially as this red and white checked flag appeared! Anyway my strategy was to stay on starboard and stay a row back so I wasn’t windward boat - remember we wanted to stay out of trouble and just try and finish some races. I’d never seen a start line do long and I ambled down towards the pin which seemed to be the favoured end. The race was two laps of a nice simple course - apart from you couldn’t see the windward mark from the start - we were issued with a bearing on the committee boat but we didn’t have a compass, however, we were just able to follow the rest of the fleet! Once at the windward mark we bore away to a spreader mark and then back to a gate at the downwind mark - another first for us. We finished the race, but in last place. The wind picked up more and we took the decision to abandon the remaining races and get home.
Day three saw a change in wind direction but the waves didn’t change direction. Racing was postponed. We then saw the committee boat sail back into the harbour. A while later our RO appeared and explained that racing couldn’t go ahead as two of the ribs had lost their anchors in the huge swells. We then set about having some beach games with some of the fleet - great fun but my wheelbarrow race skills are even worse than my sailing!
With the arrival of day four we were relieved to see calmer seas. Again we set out promptly to allow plenty of time to get to our course. Just before launching we’d heard a ship sounding its horn but there was no sign of it as we were crossing the shipping lane. Suddenly there was another very loud horn - I looked over my shoulder and a huge ferry was about 50m behind us. Talk about a rabbit in the headlights! We refrained from raising our spinnaker until we were well clear! As we arrived at the committee boat the first race was about to start. This time we actually understood what was going on as one of the other competitors had kindly explained things to us. There was a general recall and this time because they didn’t want any more faffing the black flag was displayed. We started nearer the committee boat which wasn’t the best place but we were just pleased to be on the course. We were losing ground on the fleet and by the second lap we were the last boat to the windward mark. However, we weren’t too far behind a German boat. I decided that that staying on starboard didn’t seem to be the optimum course and so we gybed and went the other way. It’s never clear until you get back down to the mark whether you made the right decision - it turned out we had and just pipped the young German guys at the line!
The wind had already dropped on the second lap and then we sat around for quite a while waiting for the wind to pick up, it didn’t! We all had to be towed back in.
Day five was our final day and the strong winds had returned. We somewhat reluctantly headed out. We sailed downwind to the start, got there just in time for the start. Capsized at the start, fortunately in nobody’s way, righted ourselves and started on port at the pin end so was able to make up a bit of lost time. When we got to the point of needing to gybe we decided to sail on and tack round - the couple that came seventh said they’d done the same having seen boats ahead upside down. We somehow managed to finish the race - in last place but finishing was a win to us! We started the second race but decided to abandon as the wind was getting stronger - gusts were hitting 30 knots. We’d sailed 4.5 miles to get to the start of the race, but were struggling to make much progress upwind going back to the beach - we sailed 12.5 miles back and lost count of the capsizes. We were broken by the time we got back on the beach but nothing that a fish Brötchen and a hot chocolate couldn’t fix!
We were very surprised when we saw the final results - we weren’t last! We’d beaten the young Germans that we‘d overtaken!
Would we do it again? Definitely! There were lots of parties, five to be precise. That’s two more than the number of races we participated in!
We learnt so much about the specifics of our boat and met loads of new people. We’ve just signed up for Chichester Harbour Week so our learning journey will continue.
