In the context of the whole festivities, various sporting events held in Angra, including a regatta: the Angra Bay Cup.
On Thursday night, some members are of the “Angra Iate Club” come with us on the bridge over and had invited all the boats, to take part in the regatta.
The Ragatta would start on Saturday at 1: 00, and around two small islands around before along the coast. About thirteen nautical miles would be to go. On Friday evening a briefing for all participants in the Yacht Club would instead find and then there should be little snacks and beer. And after the race, a traditional dinner with awards ceremony takes place in the harbour restaurant. Die Teilnahme an allem wäre natürlich kostenlos 🙂
Das hörte sich schon fast ein bisschen zu gut an 🙂 Aber das Ganze hatte auch einen großen Haken. Almost no wind was announced for Saturday and our thick SUMMER needs a few nodes, um in Schwung zu kommen 🙂 Und wir beide haben ja auch schon so unheimlich viel Regatta-Erfahrung sammeln können. After all, we have ever watched a finishing of such an event from the beach. Would that be??
Next to us was the American Yacht CADENCE at the jetty. So we consulted with Bill, What to do. The racer was awakened quite soon in Dietmar. And so a short time later it was clear: Wir fahren mit 🙂 Ich sah das eher olympisch, denn dabei sein ist bekanntlich alles 🙂 Außerdem gab es etwas Leckeres zu essen 🙂
So we went on a Friday night with Bill to the briefing. Sure all our questions would be answered here. Just in time we arrived at the Yacht Club at seven and were once again the first :-). After the other participants arrived. Everybody knew everybody and it was laughed a lot. The remaining field of participants seemed to be a sworn community.
Once the formalities were settled. Anyone got a sign-up sheet with many empty fields. To enter, we needed but only the name of the boat, the boat class and the number of people, the morning for dinner would appear. That's when you knew direct, was eigentlich wichtig war 🙂 Dann begann das Briefing……in Portugiesisch 🙁 genau wie die Regatta-Satzung und das weitere Regelwerk auch, We got handed out.
We were just relieved, als im Anschluss noch eine kurze Unterweisung in englischer Sprache folgte 🙂 Anscheinend hatte man die vielen Fragezeichen über unseren Köpfen sehr deutlich sehen können, denn nach dem offiziellen Teil kam direkt ein jüngerer Portugiese auf uns zu und beantwortete sehr freundlich alle offengebliebenen Fragen 🙂 So verließen wir die Veranstaltung halbwegs beruhigt. I hope you had ordered wind for tomorrow yet tidy, otherwise we would have to probably vigorously rowing, um irgendwann die Ziellinie zu passieren 🙂
On Saturday morning, it knocks on our boat wall: Outside stood Birgit by the Dutch SY synergy. We had met Birgit and Dan in Velas, but here not seen in Angra. She had a really good idea: “Whether we would like, to sail the regatta with the two as crew on the buzzer? Das wäre doch viel lustiger 🙂 🙂 :-)” There she was clearly right and therefore it was agreed.
Our crew was highly motivated in our on board against 12: 30. Until now we have never sailed the SUMMER with other sailors together, but everything went smoothly from the outset – einfach super Teamarbeit 🙂
Outside the port romped already the boats. We continued, Once there, also sports the sailing and dümpelten back and forth at three knots wind in slow motion. Das konnte ja heiter werden 🙂
Also the regatta line found, that the conditions were very difficult and shortened the routes and moved the starting line. The start should now half an hour later, to 1: 30. Fortunately, we got this information in English on the radio. Unfortunately we could not understand but, where they had moved the starting line. To ensure the general confusion, they drove for a walk the red marker buoy with the inflatable boat.
So mussten wir wohl oder übel eine andere Strategie entwickeln 🙂 Also suchten wir uns ein sportliches, Portuguese boat and put us on his heels. As it turned out then, We had chosen well and were in the starting signal with one of the first, took the course on the first island.
Came then with the go-ahead “How to order” the wind and we made good speed. So we cruised up diligently towards the Islands. In the meantime us long ride sailors was somewhat queasy, because the tough sailor flew over time with less than three meters distance across our bow.
We enjoyed the sporty sailing, a quite a change to the, was wir sonst für gewöhnlich so machen 🙂
Even if subsequent images give a different impression, wir waren wirklich sportlich unterwegs 🙂 Es wurde gekurbelt und getrimmt, und irgendwann war dann einfach alles perfekt getrimmt 🙂 Dann war auch einmal eine kleine Pause angesagt.
On the last route was then once again used the parasailing and brought us despite decreasing wind quickly towards the target.
Auch die Presse war mit von der Partie gewesen und so konnten wir uns über einige Bilder unserer SUMMER unter Segeln freuen 🙂
Perhaps we were also in the television? We will probably never know. If we were also not the fastest, so haben wir doch die schönste Hummel des ganzen Feldes links und rechts auf dem Bug 🙂
The great day sounded out atmospheric Harbour restaurant for good food in fun round.
Each skipper got even still presented a bottle of port wine.
And small souvenirs were ready for all participants.
A really interesting experience, auch wenn unsere SUMMER sicher keine Rennziege ist und auch nicht werden wird 🙂 In unserer Klasse sind wir immerhin auf Platz 9 by 16 Participants ended up.
