Glossary Wolffs Revier: Co-owner on probation
YACHT
· 09.05.2024
"Ah, the post has arrived." My husband waves two envelopes. Mooring and insurance bill. I see the amounts and don't dare say it, but think, as I do every year: "That would be a nice beach holiday with sun, all-inclusive and so on." So not on the Baltic Sea, but island hopping in the Maldives or the Caribbean, followed by a safari in the Serengeti, finally seeing lions in the wild. But that's where my husband's opinion falls flat.
"You have wild animals here too. Think of the jellyfish and the harbour porpoises. Besides, there's sand everywhere where you want to go." My husband hates sand. Most of all on the boat. He has already shooed neighbours off the "old lady" after they had happily told him that they had gone for a walk on the beach to look for shells; afterwards he pedantically cleaned the joints with a soft toothbrush. In this respect, he is even more extreme than our jetty neighbour Michael, and that's saying something.
More from Steffi von Wolff:
Then I think of something. Something I've been toying with for a while. "An owners' association would be an idea," I say in a cheerful voice. My husband stares at me like an apparition. "What do you mean by that? What are you trying to say?" "With a solution like that, you only have half the costs and ..." "... and half the boat!" my husband gasps and grabs the left side of his chest. "So you want to sell our 'old lady'."
"It's just an idea." Does he have to get so worked up?
"Think about my pump!" he shouts. "Never in my life. I'll never share my 'old lady'. Never!" Then he turns away from me and reads the bills.
Perhaps a community of owners is a good idea after all
A week later, we have just arrived in Sønderborg and are putting things away when there is a knock on the door. Waltraud and Ingo are there. After my husband had estimated all the running costs for the "old lady", my idea wasn't so bad after all. "You can give it a try. But if the people aren't good for the ship, it's game over." Then the four of us sit in the cockpit. "We're so happy," Waltraud cheers. "We can finally live our dream of sailing." Ingo nods. "It's really nice that it worked out and that we're getting to know each other."
"Tell us about yourselves," my husband asks and pours some white wine. "So what boats you've sailed and so on." Ingo raises his glass and we clink glasses. "They were all ingenious custom-built boats with extra fittings. We started with a Hacker New Micro Magic 2020."
"I've never heard of it," says my husband in amazement. "That was also a single building," explains Ingo, not without pride. "I need to go to the toilet." Waltraud gets up. She has to go to the loo? That's terrible. I hate it when strangers use our toilet. But of course I show her everything. "Wow," says Waltraud after we've gone down the companionway. "How tidy everything is here." Yes, and it should stay that way, I want to say, but of course I don't say it. I'm glad that my husband has agreed to look for co-owners and that Waltraud and Ingo are here now. "Please don't put the toilet paper in the bowl, otherwise the faeces tank will clog," I ask them. "The paper goes in the bin." "Okay," says Waltraud. I go back upstairs.
"She was a beast," I hear Ingo say. "As greedy as anything, and at every turn she wanted to show me that she was in charge." My husband listens to him in awe. "In between, we had a D-Power Rapidcat," he continues, and my husband's mouth falls open. "I don't know it either." "Not everyone can do that either," says Ingo proudly. "Insanely fast, the good one. You just have to know how to use it." "Yes, that's important," says my husband, who now looks at Ingo like an Opti child would look at Boris Herrmann after he has taken him in his arms and taken him on the "Malizia". "The Krick Comtesse was also okay, but personally I liked the Kyosho Fortune 612 best." He raises his glass. "To sailing." My husband almost submissively follows suit. "Wow. I don't know any of that. Here's to sailing."
Waltraud comes back. "Everything is so nice and clean," she says. Yes, and I want to keep it that way. I smile at her. The two men are already getting everything ready. Wait a minute. "Shall we go out first to see how you get on with the 'old lady'?" I ask in surprise. "Oh where," says my husband. "Ingo is a complete professional." Ingo nods, flattered. I see. That's where the wind comes from. My husband admires Ingo because he knows boats he's never heard of.
Two hours later, it is clear that they will be making their first trip over Easter. On the "old one". Without us. "Over Easter?" I ask my husband after everything has been tied up and the two of them have left. "Easter is always the first nice long weekend, there's herb-crusted lamb and..." "If I may remind you: you wanted an owner's association," he says, and he's right. "But you're on fire now just because Ingo knows boats you don't know."
"Quite possibly," he admits. "Why don't you google the boats," I suggest. "Maybe these are the last carrots." "Like hell I will," says my husband venomously.
"Oops, that's where we're dotted"
Maundy Thursday is the day. Waltraud and Ingo embark, we disembark. I feel as if I'm about to be decapitated myself. "Have a nice trip then," my husband calls as the "old lady" comes dangerously close to the jetty. "Reverse gear!" he shouts to Ingo. "Haha, rookie mistake," comes back, and they both laugh. I am stunned. Normally, the trip would have been over in that second.
Then the worst day of my life begins. Waltraud and Ingo didn't really know where to go, so we suggested Flensburg. Ingo calls just an hour later. "What are those buttons on the right?" "Where, on the right?" "Well, on the right. Next to the companionway." "I see. That's where you raise the sail. Electrically ..." "Ingo probably never had to worry about that," he says to me. "He'll have had his people for that. I think it's all the better that he admits he didn't know before something happened." "Mmm." He fiddles with his mobile phone. "They don't even have the GPS tracker on. Stupid thing to do." "Then tell him to switch it on." "No, no, he'll feel reprimanded. After all, it's an honour for him to be sailing with our 'old lady'."
Waltraud calls. "I think the loo is blocked." "How so?" I ask. "I told you not to put toilet paper in the bowl." "I didn't either. I used Tempo tissues and I needed ... er, quite a few." O Goooooott, I'm dying. "That looks like it's almost overflowing, too." "Close all the valves." I explain to her how to do it.
'Don't get upset,' says my husband. "Ingo is a professional. He'll fix it." Ingo calls my husband. "There are these red things. What does that mean?" "Red things? They're barrels. Make sure you don't hit them..." I hear the "clang", even though the mobile phone is not on speaker, which my husband now changes. "Oops, we've been dumped," I hear Ingo shout. "Oops, we've crashed into something downstairs."
"You've run aground? Why don't you stay in the fairway?" my husband yells, red in the face. The pump, the pump. "Fairway?" "Yes, fairway!" Ingo simply hangs up. "For God's sake, we have to get to Flensburg somehow before they dock there and wreck even more," my husband gasps, and we get in the car and drive off to pick them up. But they don't turn up. "I'm losing it," says my husband. "Just because you wanted this community of owners, now we're stuck with the salad." "But I told you that ..." "Just shut up, please."
When we arrive in Flensburg, we keep an eye out, and sure enough, a DGzRS boat arrives, towing our "old lady" behind it. She has lots of red scratches from the red buoy. Waltraud and Ingo dock with our help. "But it's not a good boat," are Ingo's first words. "It reacts much later than the ones I know." We say nothing and go on board.
The toilet has now overflowed and the two of them have even managed to sweep the glass cylinder of a paraffin lamp, my favourite, off the stand. The splinters are all over the wooden floor and there have already been scratches. A tupperware bowl has leaked and stained the fridge. "The good herring salad," says Waltraud.
"Tell me," says someone from the DGzRS. "The guy told me all the things he's sailed. Didn't you see the light?" "Why?" asks my husband in astonishment. "Well, Krick Comtesse and Kyosho Fortune and what they're all called," says the sea rescuer, amused. "What do you mean?" "They're all model boats," we're told. "Model boats?" says my husband, pale. "But that's almost the same thing," says Ingo anxiously, looking like he's about to collapse from fear. My husband turns to him. Ingo will certainly never forget this Easter.
