4th leg

The fifth country in 4 legs, and yet another currency. We first sail a course of 350 degrees from Lithuania to Latvia. After about 50 nautical miles, we turn North (20 degrees). We are happy with the forecasted wind out of the West, which is supposed to turn South later on. Unfortunately, a rain shower and maximum wind speeds of about 25 knots in the afternoon coincide with the starting sequence. With 4 minutes left until the start, we have to change out the heavy jib for the 3.5 jib. This takes us about 3 minutes and we end up starting to leeward.

The fleet is a mess at the start. The upwind mark is 1.5 nautical miles away and we reach it together with a Comfortina 42. After rounding the mark, we decide to take a risk and fly the A4-gennaker for the 4 nautical mile-long downwind leg towards the port entrance. It paid off and we left the fleet behind.

We take our time dousing the sail, jibe and start heading North along the coast with a heavy genoa in fairly choppy seas. “Früstücksdirektor” likes these conditions: With main and genoa up, we exceed the 12 knot mark more than once. After about 30 nautical miles, the big X 61 is the only yacht in the fleet that is catching up with us.

Then the wind starts shifting to 220 degrees and we decide to fly the small A3-gennaker – for the first time in these wind conditions (130 degrees true) and 22-24 knots of wind. We are surprised with the outcome. With a top speed of 13.8 knots, the boat is easy to steer and rounding never becomes a problem.

At first, nobody in the fleet risks flying the gennaker. With each additional knot of speed, “Frühstücksdirektor” increases her distance to the rest of the fleet and the large X 61 ahead of us has problems keeping her lead. In any event, she is not a threat to us because of her rating.

For about an hour, we enjoy being speed junkies. The display is counting down nautical miles in no time. This reminds us of a slot machine ‘eating’ money. Nobody wants to go below to sleep. Usually, 2 guys are on stand-by for a couple of hours to get some rest. They can ‘retire’ either to the sail bags or – if we are not wearing foul weather gear – in the aft cabin. There is always enough to do for six people: Trimming and changing sails & sheets, clearing up the cockpit. Every 90 minutes, two of us take turns steering. Our meals consist of Mars, Snickers, zwieback, a jar of Polish pickles, & power drinks.

The wooded and almost unsettled coast of Latvia to one side offers distraction, in addition to a few very large waves lifting “Frühstücksdirektor’s” stern. We then slide down the wave with about 13 knots.

Meeno Schrader from Kiel and www.windfinder.com are correct in forecasting a lighter 205 degree wind at about 8pm. We decide to change to the large A4-gennaker. Unfortunately, the A3-gennaker gets caught in between the spinnaker sheet and the boom. Three ugly holes are the result. However, Jannemann patches the holes with band-aids below.

Our course is now 20 degrees, with about 30 nautical miles left to the finish line. It stays light until about 10pm, which makes it easier to steer the downwind course. “Gunvor” (X46) is catching up from behind. We can’t see the rest of the fleet.

We are the second yacht to cross the finish line at 1.37am. It took us 12 hours to sail the 106 nautical miles. When we go to bed at 3am, no official results are posted yet. The weather is good – the sky is clear and full of stars – and we decide to store all sails on deck to dry, since everything got wet because of crashing waves and when we doused the spinnaker.

We wake up at 8am and realize it’s raining below decks: All windows and hatches are wide open and the sails outside wet. Ventspils is greeting its visiting sailors with a steady rain.

We have to wait until the afternoon to get results. But it was worth the wait: Another victory in Class A and overall. This is a great position to be in before the last leg to Pärnü, since we still have a through-out and our worst result was a second place. “Schüddelfrost”, a Hanse 371, also wins her class with a lead of 25 seconds.

We’ll be back from Pärnü. This will be a fun and challenging leg.

„Frühstücksdirektor“’s crew::
Jörn Bock, Ralph Moser, Nico Jeschonneck, Jörn Diercks, Timo Jakobs und der Bootkapitän und Bordchef Jan Dabelstein