Boat Transport Company

 As expected when sailing Kiel Week a variety of conditions were
encountered by the sailors this year, although lighter winds prevailed
for the Olympic Classes portion of the regatta. Usually run after the
International classes, that’s any one-design from an Optimist to an
X-35 and everything in between! They sailed the Olympic classes first
this year to make the tight logistics easier for sailors going to
Portugal for the ISAF Worlds afterwards.
 If you have never been here it is much more than a multi-class
sailing event. It is a sailing celebration, this year being the 125
anniversary of the event. They have a carnival type set-up in downtown
Kiel with food, rides and of course, lots of beer gardens! There are
nightly concerts on 5 stages with live music for every taste,
including some of Germany’s most popular acts. Tall ships and dinner
cruise boats are berthed along the waterfront at night. BMW has a
spectacular promotional set-up around a large water fountain where
they match race 22′ sport boats outfitted with shallow draft keels on
a 100 meter windward leeward course!
The regatta is run out of the Olympic Center, a marine facility
purpose built for the ’72 games. This is a few miles out of town, on
the north side of the canal entrance. It is very impressive with
sponsor flags and signs everywhere. It is a bit of a cross between a
boat show and a carnival. Tourists walk throughout the area intently
watching the activities of the alien like sailors. I have never seen
so many people interested in the activity at a launching ramp or hoist
before! There are even autograph hounds, they seem to pick sailors at
random or just because they are from a far away place.
A large tent is set-up in the middle of the fairway where they do
everything from registration to weather briefings, daily television
newscasts and award ceremonies to a nightly raging party for the
hardcore sailors! There are many shops, some temporary others are year
round including a sail loft. My skipper pointed out that he had never
seen so much foul weather gear and yachting attire for sale in one
place. Restaurants, food stands, and the ever present beer stands
abound. There is also a regatta technical bureau; this is where it is
all organized from. A large press center is housed next door. Four
yacht clubs join together to take care of the race committee work. BMW
provides a bunch of vehicles to move trailers and sailing equipment
around, they are more than happy to fulfill most requests. One I had
to go for a speed test on the autobahn was denied!
The sponsorship at Kiel Week is outstanding they must have an
extremely large budget to provide all these services and
infrastructure. They even boast an on the water repair service. It is
the only one like it in the world. They have three large RIB’s
patrolling the racing area, staffed by master riggers, sail makers and
boat builders. They have the tools, supplies, hardware and know-how to
get you back into action quickly should you have a breakdown or
collision. This service is provided free of charge to all sailors, you
even get to keep very nice carbon tiller extension should you happen
to break one!
The racing was good this year although we lost a day for lack of
wind, there were also postponements at the dock. The race committee
did an outstanding job in trying conditions, and did not waste a lot
of time in making the correct decisions. I thought there was marginal
signaling in the first race when they shortened course. In the medal
race there were too many boats around the racing area making for
choppy conditions. They were holding it close to shore, but probably
too close to the harbor entrance, so it could be seen by spectators.
When we crossed the finish line first in that race, I did not hear any
applause!
 Kiel Week is fantastic event, even gazing across the bay at all the
sailboats and Tall Ships sailing together is quite spectacular in
itself. Year after year regulars camp in tents on wet ground to be
there, sailing in conditions which are often very extreme and very
cold. At the end of the day when they are hosing themselves off in the
parking lot there is a smile on their face! Anyone looking for One
Design sailing at its best should check it out

The adventure would not be out of place in an anthology of ancient tales of foolhardy mariners. A pensioner who set sail for the Caribbean in a homemade boat because he liked pictures of the tropical islands has reached his destination after overcoming violent storms, shipwrecks, burglary, severe damage to his vessel and eight months marooned in Norfolk.
Yesterday, Erik Ramgren, a 66-year-old papermill worker from Sweden, was lounging on the deck of his 11.5-metre (38ft) catamaran in a pair of yellow trunks in Chaguaramas bay, a marina in Trinidad surrounded by thick forests.
“I was going crazy with loneliness,” Mr Ramgren said, as he recalled some of his misadventures over the last 14 months. “I was actually hearing voices from the hull in the boat and I started speaking to myself for hours and hours. There was no one around. I would just talk and talk to myself.”
Mr Ramgren began his sea voyage despite limited sailing experience and an ill-equipped catamaran which, by his own admission, was only half-built.
Following the death of his wife in 1992 and only child in 1997 he had nothing left but his yacht, he said, and was keen to live in a warmer climate.
But as he departed Stockholm with his boat stacked with strips of plywood, paint and cans of beer, it was clear that his would be an amateur voyage.
His yacht, Turbolaans Absolut, had no flares, no emergency radio and – crucially – no echo sounder. After just 12 days at sea he hit a sandbank off the coast of Norfolk.
The Guardian found Mr Ramgren moored opposite an Asda car park on a grey industrial stretch of the river Yare in Great Yarmouth.
His introduction to England had been coarse: no one had offered him a shower or a hot meal, teenagers has taken to throwing stones at his boat and the dockyard owner fined him £50 for wasting staff time.
“I’d like to leave Yarmouth now,” he said. “This is a very peculiar place. Everyone eats so many fried potatoes. And the coffee is so expensive. It is no place for a poor Swedish pensioner.”
John Cannell, a crewman from Caister lifeboat, rallied to his support, providing the sailor with a winter mooring and a new radio – the Carphone Warehouse also paid for repairs to his hull after reading of Mr Ramgren’s plight.
But despite the assistance, Mr Ramgren resumed his trip in mid-July in a boat that was still without keels. He admitted he was taking “a big chance” by venturing out in a broken and unstable yacht. About an hour later, Erik Ramgren disappeared into a clear blue horizon.
He reappeared three months later, near Trinidad. “I was caught out with no power 13 miles off the coast,” he said. “The current was taking me to Mexico.” He used the radio supplied by his Norfolk friend to call for help.
He finally entered Chaguaramas bay as he had departed Yarmouth – towed by a rescue boat.
In a letter to Mr Cannell, Mr Ramgren recounted his adventure. His engine had failed hours after he left Norfolk in the summer, and he was forced to drift with the tide through a treacherous strip of the English channel criss-crossed with shipping lanes.
“Finally a north-west wind came and I could leave for the Bay of Biscay,” he wrote. “First evening out there: me in the kitchen cooking dinner, perfect weather, boat sailing on its own balance [and] suddenly a bang in the front of the other hull! I rush upstairs just [in time] to see a coconut-looking thing disappearing out the back. The boat turns. It’s not possible to steer.”
He arrived in the Canary island of Gomera a month later after enduring six severe gales which ripped his sails to pieces. “Small harbour. No space for me. Lying at the ferry-jetty [authorities] tell me to go away. Give me three hours to refill my food supply. I start draining the supermarkets of all their cans of fish and bags of rice. Two and half days later I leave Santiago de la Gomera with a fine hanging over my head.
“Out at sea I find out that somebody has stolen my binoculars, the briefcase with my few papers and €400 [£600].”
Mr Ramgren said he had been advised to sail to a nearby island where he could fix his boat cheaply and install keels.
“Impossible without keels in a strong north-east wind. [Instead] my choice gets to be the Caribbean, although the time is the worst possible, with September coming – the hurricane season.”
He was rescued off the coast of Trinidad on October 13 “after so many hazards that there is no space for them in this letter”.
Desperately saving food and water, but unable to leave the helm of his catamaran because his automatic steering had failed, he lost 15kg. “I had to be at the wheel almost all the way from England to Trinidad,” he said. “I wonder if there is one more idiot as big as me on this Earth!”
But the mariner’s journeying days may not be over yet. Basking in the Caribbean sun while eating a breakfast of tinned Swedish fish eggs left over from his supplies, he added: “It takes two to three weeks to get something done in Trinidad where it will take me one day to have it done in Sweden. It took me weeks to find a mechanic to fix the motors and he never meets his appointments. That would never happen in Sweden.”
He is, however, trying to make up for lost companionship.
“I’m enjoying the nightlife here,” he said. “Every time I go out to parties I don’t come home until the next morning. I’m looking for a woman to spend time with – there’s room on the boat for a female friend.”

MAN DIES IN SAILBOAT ACCIDENT NEAR VASHON ISLAND

(The Associated Press)

GIG HARBOR, Wash. — A man died Saturday after a sailboat partially overturned in high winds and threw two of the four people aboard into frigid Puget Sound near Vashon Island, Coast Guard officials said.

The victim WAS NOT WEARING A LIFEJACKET and was unconscious when he was pulled from the water by a rescue boat from the Des Moines Fire Department, Petty Officer Third Class Jeff Pollinger said Saturday night.

A Coast Guard helicopter from Port Angeles took the man to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he was pronounced dead at 3:03 p.m.

KING Television reported that three men and a woman were aboard the 25-foot sailboat when it capsized and then righted itself shortly after noon. Two of the men were thrown into the water.

The victim was found 90 minutes after a Vashon Island Fire Department boat picked up the other man, who was treated and released from a Vashon Island hospital, KING reported.

Additional details were not available.

Dear Crew
Scotty Peck was killed during the race on Saturday. He was sailing his boat,
a 25 foot Santana, with three other crew, one of whom was Chester Hibbard.
They took a severe knockdown in the vicinity of Point Robinson off Vashon.
Two crew were knocked overboard. Chester was holding Scotty who was
unresponsive and turning blue in the water when he had to let go to save the
other crewman who was suffering from hypothermia. When they managed to get
the person aboard, Scotty had slipped away. Scotty was wearing a inflatable
but it did not inflate leading to speculation that Scotty was unconscious
when he hit the water.
For those of you who did not know Scotty, he sailed with us many times. He
was one of the good sailors on the sound, a great foredecker. He loved
sailing as very few can. Todd and Mike had called today because of a rumor
that it was Scott. I just now heard the full story from one of the Jones
boys. Sorry to be the bearer of shocking news, but I thought you all should
know what happened.
Art