Busy as in the old days

29 June 2015

The Kieler Woche was just as busy and fun as in the old days. Unlike last year, we were almost fully booked this year. Everyday we had a trip with about 100 guests and a lot of delicious food and drinks. The weather was very nice the whole week and there was not a lot of wind, so we could set quite a lot of sails. As always, we did so and the guests were very content. For the crew it is always a lot of work. Whole days of setting sail, removing sails, making shelter for the rain, tack, put away the rain shelter, set sail, tack, install a new beer barrel, tack, put the gaff topsail up and take it down again. At night we laid next to the ‘Roald Admundsen’, ‘Amphitrite’ and ‘Johan Schmidt’. We got friendly with our neighbours because of all the package-carrying across each others decks. Luckily there was time for a party from time to time, we even sailed a small evening trip together with crew of other ships. We sold tickets for the Windjammer Parade on Saturday, because we were not booked for this event. Finally we got 83 guests, whom we provided with drinks and food, but without a catering crew. Cooking, bar service, dishwashing, sailing and storytelling. Everyone left the ship smiling, and that gives us great satisfaction! 
With the infamous pirate party on the ‘Johanna Saturna’ on Saturday evening we ended the week. After a quick conversion, cleaning, water refill and carrying supplies on board, we were ready for our new guest crew at 5 PM. After an extensive instruction about the travel preparation we went over the charts together. We made a short stop in Holtenau and got the last sea charts, and then we set sail towards Storebælt in a 2 Bft wind.