Sailboatrace day!

This was the most remarkable day of our trip! We just made it in time to the skippers briefing at 11 am on the pier. After that we thought the race would take of, but no! First a real BBQ with hamburgers and lots of chips!

All well feed, we went on the boats, all classic old boats, most of them very beautiful, ours was the Raven.  At 13.30 the race was started. The blue flag fell, a horn blew and we were in the middle of boats trying to get out as the first ones. We didn´t make that but we were well on our way, the race course was far out in the Atlantic, past many islands, most of them privately ownes with nice houses on them. The wind was just good enough that we still felt save and the boats made good speed.

Then, it happended! All of a sudden, Katrin slipped and fell out of the boat and we saw her disappearing in the Ocean. To our luck, Al our skipper had a perfect reflex and threw a lifering back to her. So she could swim to it and hold on, while on the boat we had to turn and get back to her in waves higher than one meter. It was important not to lose her out of sight, it´s surpring how small one becomes swimming alone in this endless ocean. But Al did a wonderful job, he manovered back to her, we pulled her back into the boat and the race went on!

She didn´t hurt herself much, her arm is blue now, she must have hit something while falling of the boat. And, luckily, the water wasn´t that cold, arround 17 degrees, so she had not a too big shock!

The picture shows her just being back in the boat, all clothes wet.

We ended up making a solid race, but not as winners. 

After the race there was a big party to which we were invited and we enjoyed a fantastic evening amongst all this so nice people. It felt like being home!