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Dear readers,

Anyone who has been in Kiel-Schilksee in the past few days or is still using this weekend for it can experience something. It is often referred to as a sailing festival, the world's largest regatta week. But these empty words don't even begin to describe what goes on there. When several classes start at the same time, the harbour apron, which has just been quiet, turns into an anthill. Traffic jams form at the slipways, boats come in, slip cars go out. In the harbour, the narrow lanes become ant trails, and it's always a minor miracle that everyone gets out safely. The fjord, almost empty of boats a moment ago, is suddenly teeming with sails.

• You can find everything about Kiel Week in our special

Time for a tour of the Olympic Centre. It's amazing what has happened there over the years; tents, halls and pagodas, exhibitors and sponsors, party tents, open-air arena, lounges. On the pitch for motorhomes, caravans and tents, the shock: it's still there - the gutter of horror. It brings back memories from over 30 years ago, almost literally.

It was 1990, the first Kiel Week after reunification and therefore my first chance as a young Finn dinghy sailor to take part in this legendary event. It turned out to be a fiasco. Travelling with my 78 Passat and an igloo tent, this arrangement quickly turned out to be the wrong choice - although as a youngster I had no other option. It rained cats and dogs, in my memory the whole week. I never got dry. I got out of the tent in the morning, sprinted to the Passat, opened the tailgate and took shelter. Change there, put on my regatta gear, dry suit and off I went to wash in this lift. Which meant: off to the gutter.

This is a simple stainless steel construction. A water pipe runs at the top with taps at certain intervals, with trays underneath to collect what comes from above. A drain at the end. If, like me, you've never used this washing station before, it's easy to make the mistake of standing at the end with the drain. I'll spare you, dear reader, a detailed description of the results of several people brushing their teeth and shaving. In a word: disgusting.

Then out on the water, after hours and what were then still miserably long courses and journeys, back on land completely exhausted, still in the rain. The almost impossible attempt to get changed under the Passat tailgate and put on something dry, which got wet again as soon as I queued for the shower.

That's my first memory of Kiel Week. And it was to be my last for a long time. Apparently I was just unlucky, as the number of participants over the following three decades shows. The appeal of the "Kiwo" remained unbroken.

But my guess is that only a few people will experience the gutter of horror today. At least, if I base my assumption on the ratio of motorhomes to tents. The latter were significantly less represented at this edition than I remember from back then, and you can also wash yourself in motorhomes.

But I'm not going to get into the discussion here about whether the Kieler Woche clientele has become more affluent or simply older.

Lars Bolle

Editor-in-chief watersports digital

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