Sailing 2003
May 2003

See more photos of the sailing trip.

UIIc (June 2003)

"Great idea!" – " But I'm afraid of falling off the boat!" – " That's going to be too expensive!" – "Yes, let's do it!" – " But I already know how to sail." – " What if the boat capsizes?" – "Are we going to get a sailing license?"
Those were the first reactions from a class of 10th graders when their form teacher suggested to do a sailing course. Actually we had planned an exchange with a class in Wales, Great Britain. The flights had already been booked, when suddenly our partner school in Wales told us they were very sorry but they didn't have enough host families. So we looked for an alternative and found it in a brochure of the DHH (Deutscher Hochseesportverband "Hansa" e.V.) with an ad about "the different class trip": A sailing course! The students agreed to that pretty fast. The school and the parents agreed, too, and the price was not too high, either.


Saturday

We left on a Saturday in May and after quite a long journey we finally reached Gluecksburg at the Baltic Sea. Our first impression of the immediate environment and the people there was extremely positive. A big house, very nice and comfortable rooms, a beach volleyball court and a big meadow to play football on. Our instructors were soon introduced to us, all the gear that we needed was given to us (including a rope to practice knots) and the daily routine was explained, everything seemed to be well organized. On our first evening we still had enough energy, though, for a soccer game and a round of cards before we went to bed, very tired but full of expectations. What would the first day on our sailing trip be like?






Sunday
Of course we couldn't enter the boats right away. First of all, after all the flags were hoisted, we were greeted by the head instructor and different knots were shown to us and practised, of course: cross-knot, eight-knot etc. - foreign words to still non sailors like us, but with the time totally routine.
Then finally we went to the jetty, all the different parts of a boat were explained to us and right away we could get on the boats and clear everything for take off. Before we could actually start sailing we had to row away from the jetty to a buoy or a post to set up our sails. We were surprised how fast and easy the wind took us out of the harbour into the bay.
Now we could get our first sailing experience, proper use of the mainsail and even the rudder was taken over by us at some point, around noon we went back and practised to dock on properly.
In the afternoon everything went a little faster and we were out on the water in no time, setting the sails went very fast and now we could practise tacking. Back at the jetty we had to clean up the boats, which included putting all the sails together, washing the boats and putting everything away for the next day.


Monday
A couple kids that already knew how to sail or at least had knowledge of it were allowed to take boats out on their own, others still went out on the water with trainers but improved very fast. After we had lunch we practised tacking again. We had everything very well coordinated on the boats and the commands were heard loud and clear all over the bay.
As a new manoeuvre we learned gybing. The danger of the boom suddenly whipping around was mentioned very clearly, and now we could practise gybing by going around the buoys that were set up like a triangle. The wind got stronger and small whitecaps appeared, everything was great and we had lots of fun. All the fear that might have been there disappeared and now everybody was able to guide the boat and his crew.


Tuesday
Today there was very strong wind from the beginning and just a couple kids had the guts to take the rudder in this wind and with that the command over the boat. On some boats the sailings teachers had to help out a little bit.The wind was a lot stronger then the day before and because of that we tried to stick to the easy manoeuvres that we had practiced a lot. We had to let the mainsail flap a bit because otherwise we could easily tip the boat in this wind and since we tried not to get totally drenched we really didn't want to try to tip the boats and capsize.




Tired, cold and totally exhausted we got off the boats around lunch time - happy that we had overcome the wind and the waves and that we had solid ground under our feet after that wild ride. As we were ready to leave for our afternoon sailing we were told that the wind had picked up even more and that it was too dangerous to go out, some were very disappointed, but after all we could use the afternoon to dry our clothes, to take a nap, buy tons of sweets, practise knots or other things to relax so we could start the next day fully regenerated.


Wednesday
The wind had died down and it seemed a little boring compared to the day before. But we were given a new task: We should sail in a formation and that's exactly what we did, we sailed the Flensburger Bay and enjoyed the sight of the small fleet that we were. The afternoon started out with theory lessons. We reviewed everything that we had learned up to now, because the next day we had to take a test. The rest of the afternoon was spent on the water, we practised gybing again.


Thursday
Everybody was very excited and worried: we had to do 4-page test. But in the end it wasn't that bad at all. Everybody was successful, nobody failed the written test! Even the questioning about the knots went well, therefore we had plenty of time to still go sailing. Two motorboats with the instructors on board guided us and we had to show them all the manoeuvres that we had learned. In the end we found out that everybody had passed and that everyone could call himself a proud official junior sailor.
In the afternoon we had actually planed a race between all the different boats. But we hardly had any wind so the start was rather bad, later the race was divided into two parts:

1. Which boat was able to at least move forward a tiny bit?
2. How could one get the other boats totally soaked?
And the winner is boat No.4, congratulations! Every boat was totally drenched, except for the one with the teachers

This week went by far too fast!
We will always keep nice memories of this sailing trip: We had great instructors, very good food, a beach, a little bit of sun, a volleyball-/ soccer field … everything that we needed to have a great week here. We can only recommend such a sailing class trip and again we would like to thank all of those people involved.

(Max Seidemann / Dr. J.Ruehlmann / A.Liegmann)