Skûtsje weekend!

the 18th and 19th of April Aqua went to Heeg to go Skûtsje sailing! We got to use the Skûtsje from Orionis on Sunday, but made a whole weekend of it by also going Valk sailing on Saturday making this the first sailing weekend of the year.

On Saturday we drove off by car at 8:30 sharp from Wageningen to Heeg. When we arrived we started setting up our camp for the night, which consisted of three family tents in which we could comfortably and also store our stuff. Luckily we managed to set these up just before the rain started so we could enjoy our lunch dry in the tent.

When we had finished our lunch we did a short briefing about the weekend and then divided the group in two to go Valk sailing, we had on boat skippered by Rodin and Olaf and the other was skippered by Niek and Miguel. We did this from 13 till about 17 with perfect wind conditions, just a little bit of rain and a very nice lake to sail on! As we were sailing on the Valks on the Heegermeer the boat skippered by Rodin and Olaf came across quite a few Skûtsjes already. At some point we even came across one of our sister associations, Euros, sailing on a Skûtsje they rented. The boat skippered by Niek and Miguel stayed closer to the port doing some skipper training maneuvers.

Than at about 17:30 we arrived back at the port, with a non operating engine on Nieks boat and cleaned up the boats and made dinner. Making dinner was quite a thing as at some point there was a big discussion about how much salt we should put in the pasta water (we were making pasta pesto), but after just putting half of the small jar of salt into the pan we had no choice but just make the pasta in there. I think in the end everyone agreed that the food was good. When we were done eating, some went to do the dishes, others played a game and Niek went to gather some wood to make a fire at the fire pit. Ottenhome, the portwhere we stayed, had a nice fire pit which we could use, so of course we had to use it. And to make the evening extra cosy we played a few rounds of our favorite game: werewolves, after which we went on a little side quest to see stars and do some 'epic' parkour.

After this successful evening everybody went to sleep to be awakened at 7:30 again, because we had a full day of Skûtsje sailing planned! After a cold night, we were woken up by Rodin and Diede, who made a nice scrambled egg breakfast. Javy, Maaike and Eilàn who joined us just before Orionis did and together with the crew we made the boats ready. We had to straighten the mast, put a reef in the sail, and get the sails ready to be hoisted. Then the captain did some impressive motor maneuvering to get out of the box, after which we motored out of the port to hoist the sails on the lake. After some successful tacks we all got to steer for a bit. I was personally very surprised by the effort needed to keep sailing at all time, cause there was a lot to do:

Everyone had to help out. On the aft deck someone had to steer, of course, one person stood on every sword to either hoist or lower it and three people were stood on the mainsheet, two were hauling the sail and one person was stood as a 'borg'. Same with the jib sheet. The sails could not be put in claws so the person standing 'borg' had to hold it at all times.

*Don't we love Nieks' boomer vingertje...*

At around twelve we had lunch at one of the islands on the lake where we prepared bread with clicksausages (broodje knak). We had plenty of sausages, so also the Orionis crew enjoyed some straight out of the pan. When we had finished our lunch it was time to take a group photo and put a second reef in the sail, because the boat was quite overpowered with just one.

After sailing away from the island we of course hoisted the sails again and discovered the boat was still a bit overpowered (but a little less than before). We were sailing at really impressive speeds going hull speed quite often. We were sailing pretty tilted too, leading to a lot of splash water entering the boat, and I think it is safe to say we were all pretty impressed.

After being a bit sunburned, we arrived happily back in Heeg where we cleaned up our camp and had some fries before heading back home.

Thanks again to Orionis to welcome us aboard! We had a great time and are already hyped for the trainingsweekend at the end of may, where we get to go valksailing again!