World Cup Fever on the World Cup Circuit

Jen here,

Sometimes when you're least expecting it, an adventure presents itself.  Last night when we arrived in Den Hague, the Holland vs Camaroon match was just beginning.  We got ourselves unpacked and I walked to find a local grocer so that we could have something in the flat for breakfast.  On my way back, I was walking down the street and taking in my surroundings when suddenly, a very excited elderly gentleman dashed out of a pub, grabbed me by the hand, and led me into the pub all while speaking at me in Dutch.  He escorted me into the pub and sat me down-apparently I was to watch the match with this room full of strangers.  What else could I do but oblige?  I sure didn't want to be rude and leave the pub in the middle of the second half!
Over the course of the game I was introduced to the "Beesie" pronounced "Bay-shee" which is a little fluffy worm which you carry around with you to show your support for team Holland.  By the time I left the pub, I was adorned with a whole herd of Beesies, had learned the tune to half a dozen Dutch folk songs, and made friends with a lovely family, including grandpa.  All of this while Erin was at home, thinking that I'd got lost on my way to find groceries.  She was definitely relieved when I made it home, and laughed when I explained what had happened and why I was covered in little orange fuzzy worms.  We already have a date for the Holland/Slovakia game on Monday.  I think that Holland will be quite the experience this month...and training starts up tomorrow!
Jen

June 24 - Travel to The Hague

Lets discuss parking in Europe for a moment. It's pretty hilarious as everything seems to be fair game, intersections, sidewalks, even on the road beside other parked cars. As it is Kiel Week and World Cup, there has been absolutely no parking near our hostel. Everyone is trying to park for free and walk downtown. I have been doing a fairly excellent job of parking our rental car in random tight places and intersections etc. and so far the car has always been there the next day. This morning however, it wasn't. We left the hostel with plenty of time to gas the car, return it and then walk to the train station (as the car rental place and the gas station are 500 m from the hostel and the train station is 3 blocks, this seemed like it would work out fine). Except then the car wasn't there. After a brief moment of panic and adrenaline, we quickly got to work. We walked to the police station (also only 3 blocks away) and a very nice police officer looked up our car and told us where it was. Thankfully in Germany instead of towing your car to an impound lot really far away, they just tow it to a street with lots of legal parking and leave it. All we had to do was find it! The policeman called us a taxi and we headed over to the street where are car was actually fairly easy to locate. There was a note in German on the windshield which we haven't managed to translate yet but it starts off "Dier Idiote" which even I can decipher. So we got the car back, gassed up, dropped it off and headed to the train station and caught our train with plenty of time. All in all it was an excellent result to what could have been disastrous morning.

We then spent the rest of the day taking the train to the Hague, which was intermittently boring and stressful as our first train got delayed and we nearly missed the transfer to the second train. We have rented a 1 bed apartment in The Hague for the next month. The landlord very kindly picked us up from the train station. The apartment is a 10 minute cycle along the beach boulevard to the marina, so we will rent bikes tomorrow and get acquainted with the city.

I have posted pictures from the German Naval Memorial Museum.

German Naval Memorial Museum

Pack up after Kiel

Jen here,

The boat is all packed up and headed to Den Hague, we follow tomorrow via train.  Despite the surprises about our boat and all of it´s repairs and fixes and the lack of wind, it´s been a great experience and good to get our first European event under our belts.  We have a laundry list of further upgrades that we´ll do to the boat when we arrive in Den Hague, including removing the bridal traveller and replacing it with a proper traveller car system like our boat back home, new spinnaker sheets, and new auto bailers (ours leak!).  We´re also very keen to actually get SAILING! We´ve befriended an Australian team of twin brothers who will also be in Den Hague very shortly,  and we´re keen to train with them. 
After packing up the boat today, Erin and I went and visited the U-boat memorial in Kiel.  It was very interesting and do I ever feel sorry for the poor soldiers who had to serve inside of those tiny cramped quarters.

More once we reach Den Hague.

Cheers,
Jen

June 22-One race

Jen here, 

Well, after starting out our third windless day waiting in the boat park,  the RC sent us out at 12:00 for some light wind racing.  Erin and I were keen to put our days of boat work to the test.  We got out to the course, warmed up, tuned up and went upwind with some other boats before heading back to the starting area.  The whole starting process took close to an hour with the two mens fleets being recalled, and ours as well. We got a good start with speed off the line and were able to hold our lane...this was a major improvement over Miami!  We stayed mid fleet throughout the race, and seemed to have good boat speed in our new boat.  On the downwind we were able to work much lower than the boats around us, and picked up a number of places.  Then the breeze went very very soft, and on the final leeward mark to the finish we got involved in one of those slow motion pinwheels where you can see the whole thing coming from about ten minutes beforehand.  We tried to position ourselves favourably by slowing down...apparently slowing down on the outside of a pinwheel is only midly effective when everyone else is only going about a knot and a half.  All in all, though, it was a great day and nice to get an actual race in after all of the waiting.

Jen

June 21 - No wind

No wind today! Got to the sailing site at 7.15 as usual and checked a few things on the boat. We managed to get the spinnaker pump system working properly by capsizing the boat and fiddling with the halyards and then righting it. Not sure what this did, but I'm not complaining. At 9 am they postponed us on shore. They are nice and decisive about things, postponed and more information at 11. Then postponed and more information at 1. Then more information at 3. Then at 4 they postponed for the rest of the day. So what did we do with all this free time? Boat work, what else! While chatting beside the boat with some other sailors, I noticed that the screw for my jib block was loose. This was like pulling on a thread on your sweater. I pulled out the screw to seal and re-insert it. Turns out it wasn't a screw, it was a bolt. With no nut on it. It was pretty much just hanging out in there. So we decided to fix it. And with everything in life, fix it properly the first time right? So up to the chandlery to buy some more parts, and then a painful few hours attempting to remove the nut from the OTHER bolt (this involved me lying upside down in the cockpit with my arm inside the tank at one point). Anyways, we did some more boat work, and now some more things on the boat are working, and then we decided not to look to closely at the boat for awhile. We also chatted with other sailors and sat in the shade. After a very cold morning, it warmed up to maybe 14 degrees but at least it was sunny! There was a bit of wind out in the harbour so the 49ers got a few races off, but they were moving very slowly. With a regatta of this size each fleet has its own course, with its own area of water. Our course is the furthest out, and while there was a bit of a thermal breeze happening in the harbour because of the land, there was no wind out on our course. A bit disappointing as we would really like to do more racing and less boat work. Interestingly, we have now had 5 water bottles stolen from beside our boat. Apparently they are worth a lot if you return them for recycling, but in a boat park full of expensive sailing gear it seams like a strange choice. Since we are not totally exhausted from the day we are going to go check out the Kiel Week international market which is very close to our hostel.

UVic Ring Article

The June issue of Uvic's Ring magazine features an article about Jen.
http://ring.uvic.ca/10jun/braem.html

June 20 - afternoon

So today was the second day of racing at Kiel. It was pretty much the total opposite of yesterday, as there was no wind! We got up early again and launched at 9.15 for an 11 start. We got picked up by the Israeli couch and towed out to the race course, which took a full hour.The wind was about 3-4 knots from 280 degrees, then died, then filled from 20 degrees, then died, then shifted.... you get the idea. We tuned up and did some roll tacks and managed to get the spinnaker up and down several times. At 11 the race committee postponed the races and we drifted around. Every time the wind filled from a new direction we dutifully tuned up and tacked up wind a bit and then ran back to the starting area with the spinnaker, until about 12 when the wind totally shut off. The fleet drifted around and we passed the time by making friends with two Australian brothers who have their boat parked right next to us. They told us all about the predators that we'll see while sailing in Perth, which terrified Jen. Eventually the RC abandoned racing for the day and we all towed back in. The trip from the launch ramp to our parking spot in the boat park was hilarious, there were so many tourists and festival goers that it was a bit like trying to walk your boat through the PNE grounds or across the exhibition grounds at the Calgary Stampede. Picture us, boat in tow, in a hurry to get out of our smelly sailing gear, weaving our way through oblivious German tourists clutching giant sausages. The pictures below should give you an idea of the size of the sailing site. It takes about 15 minutes to walk end to end. We can only find our boat again by locating the GIANT Audi tent. A dozen workmen spent the two days we were setting up our boat meticulously applying the banners for this tent. They have around 15 different Audi's on display, including the 8 being used for trailer servicing, which have sequential license plates and whirr past us about twenty times a day. The one on display directly behind our boat is a Q7 with V12. This isn't the best part though. It is an auburn color on the outside, white leather interior with real teak detailing and inlay on the back of the seats like on a yacht. We have tried to convince the Audi guys to give it to us, but they say we can only have the A1. Our plan for the rest of the day is to continue working on the boat as today we discovered that it is leaking through the centreboard bolt! We will do this as soon as the storm cell which is pouring rain on us lets up.

Kiel Week