"Cool." "Awesome." "Crazy." "Awesome." That's how the boys talk when something moves them in a positive way. These are also expressions that you often hear when talking to the sailors of the STG/NRV Youth Team about the experience they had during the first three days of training on the AC45 cats on San Francisco Bay. For most of them and their 35 colleagues from Australia, Denmark, New Zealand, Austria and South Africa, it is the highlight of their young sailing careers to get a taste of the air of professional sailing for a few days and perhaps imagine such a future.
But from today it's all about the sausage. Until Friday, these sailors have to prove under regatta conditions that they have what it takes as a team to sail an AC45 with a wing rig on the Bay at or near the limit and thus recommend themselves for the Youth America's Cup in September. The finishing order is important, but not everything. What counts above all is the overall impression that the professionals sailing on board as observers get of the teams. There will be three boats on the course at any one time, and after each race one crew will swap boats with a waiting team. In the third heat, STG/NRV will face the highly rated teams from New Zealand and Australia. In the next heat, there will be an "international match" against Austria with New Zealand in third place. And in the sixth race of the day, Denmark and South Africa are the opponents. Scoring will be based on the low-point system.
"Expecting perfection after three days of training is unrealistic," says helmsman Erik Heil, who is familiar with bolting from the 49er, albeit not on this scale. "All the teams are in the same boat." But he is confident because his team has made rapid and measurable improvements. "We optimised the flight altitude and kept the hull so close to the water that it only slightly touched the tops of the waves." To summarise: they had gained a crisp seven degrees more altitude compared to the previous days, and the top speed on a very windy and pointed course with only a small jib was suspiciously close to 30 knots.
Team boss Markus Koy took favourable note, but warned against exaggerated euphoria. "Let's get the course right first and then we'll see." It shouldn't be interpreted as a low-level offence, because for everyone present it is the first regatta with unfamiliar and extreme boats, which they entered for the first time three days ago. STG/NRV pre-sail trimmer Max Böhme can hardly wait: "We are mega-motivated." He and his colleagues from Kiel, Hamburg and Bavaria are undoubtedly very excited.
