• The week in pictures
• Recommended reading from the editorial team

Dear readers,

I think my eyes are lying to me! Indeed - my old sailing buddy Heinz is standing on the flybridge of a fat motor yacht in the harbour and greets me cheerfully. The engines are already running and the guests on board are busy casting off the mooring lines. After a bit of small talk, I dare to ask the crucial question: I would like to know how this could have happened, and I point to what I see as a rather misshapen GRP cabin on the jetty. As if he had been expecting the question, Heinz, the former ambitious sailor and now apparently a neo-motorboat driver, explains to me that he just doesn't want to wait for the wind any more. Full stop!

Of course, a glance at the mirror-smooth surface of Lake Constance on this sunny morning reinforces his point. "That might be something," I think to myself guilelessly. In any case, I wish Heinz and his family a wonderful and eventful Easter weekend on the water, politely say goodbye and watch with interest as the two drives of the humming diesel engines slowly push the buxom, gleaming white plastic yacht through the dolphins of the harbour box.

"Everyone as they like and are happy. Live and let live," I think as I walk on, still unaware that I would radically revise my opinion a little later on this beautiful day. How come? I've just set sail in the upcoming thermals in the Konstanz funnel and am enjoying the silent, pleasurable glide on my old, sleek classic.

Suddenly, the nautical comfort on the water is abruptly chopped up by the thumping of nervous techno beats. The source of the increasing agitation seems to be the motorboat, painted in bright metallic colours, which is heading in my direction. At the stern, someone with a surfboard and colourful wetsuit is riding a rarely high stern wave to the beat of the music. I guess they call it wakesurfing. "Kind of cool," I think - at first.

What I already know is that for this young and trendy sport to work at all, the specially built motorboats are not only lavishly motorised, but also modified and equipped accordingly. Namely with huge tanks in the stern for additional water ballast and with a type of spoiler on the hull that creates resistance and slows the boat down. The aim of these measures was to raise the stern wave as high as possible while travelling as slowly as possible, so that you could ride down on it quite casually with small boards.

And so they plough past me on what had been a rather peaceful Easter day on Lake Constance. So close, in fact, that I can easily recognise with the naked eye what brand of beer the young people are drinking, while their peculiar vehicle is apparently almost in danger of sinking, as deep as it is in the water. The boys bawl, the girls scream. I greet them cautiously - nobody greets me back.

What remains is the slowly fading roar of the engines and the still deafening sound of the music blasting from two gigantic speakers aft into the supposed idyll. And of course the waves - those damn waves! Short, high, steep and mercilessly unstoppable, the Kaventsmänner roll in three destructive lines towards the low freeboard of my classic. It is no longer possible to turn the ship in time. The very first wave crashes violently over the coaming into the cockpit and washes the previously lovingly prepared snacks off the dents. The main boom and the sails are flapping wildly back and forth. Chaos reigns supreme.

It's better to keep to yourself what you want to shout after the young people on the motorboat at this moment and as your composure dwindles. It wouldn't do much good either, because merciless tirades of escape on my part would be drowned out by the dwindling noise of the nautical apocalypse anyway. What remains is a soaking wet skipper with no spare clothes, lots of water in the boat and a widely scattered snack in the cockpit, which in retrospect is almost the worst thing. At that moment, I also open a beer for myself and search for reflection and attempts at understanding - unfortunately in vain.

As the confused waves slowly subside, I can see the colourful boat in the Konstanz funnel making a wide arc in the distance. And again they head straight in my direction. This time the horror comes from the other side. Heaven help!

Michael Good, Editor YACHT

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The week in pictures:

Recommended reading from the editorial team:

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