Monday, August 3, 2015

Race Two - Kristiansand to Aalborg

As with the other festival ports when we left Kristiansand it was as part of the parade of sail. This one seemed particularly spectacular, there were hundreds of boats out and as the ship from the host port we had a place of honour just behind the navy escort ship. 


This leg was our second race of the season, it was quite different to the first, much shorter for one thing and with light winds most of the time (which was amazing for galley work) it took a different sort of strategy. Everyone on the ship was dedicated to taking advantage of every wind shift, gust and current. In the end the race got cut short so that ships could turn on their engines and get to Aalborg in time. So rather than a finish line a time was announced and the ship furthest along after adjusting for handicaps (which are based on sail area) at that time would win. And… we won!!!! We knew we were sitting in first (of class) at 0500 that morning, the race finished at 1400 and around 2000 we found out the results!!! Amazing! 

It was a great day as besides the obvious race excitement we also hove to and had a quick swim call followed by ice cream treats.  

We stopped for one night in Hals, at the entrance to the Limfjorden that leads to Aalborg. While we were alongside we celebrated our trip together by eating a family dinner in the banjer. It's the only time the maritime crew and the trainees eat together so it's pretty special. 

Arriving in Aalborg was special, Carsten was coming to his hometown on the winning ship with an amazing crew. As we came in the trainees dressed the yards and sang sea shanties before we blasted our theme song, "Everything is Awesome" (from the Lego movie) and danced away. 

An now we are at our final festival of the year! All our events are externally catered which means us #galleygirls have had some shorter work days. Yay! Carsten is doing a live TV show every night and the crew is still celebrating our success. It's a great way to end the summer. 

A nice event for me was having my aunt, uncle and cousin come by as part of their Scandinavian tour. They got a very thorough tour of the ship and we were able to go out for dinner together. After being away so long it's nice to see people you know from outside the ship world. 

Somehow I didn't take many photos this sail but here are some of Aalborg: