Dear readers,

Six months is a long time. I haven't been at my desk for that long. Almost 10 years to the day after my first day at YACHT, I became a father and moved from the desk to the nappy-changing table. My wife, the baby and I spent most of the summer, almost three months, on board. No appointments, the end of the summer and parental leave in the unimaginably distant future, just great! We weren't really far from home on the Swedish coast, but we were so far removed from everyday life that it could have been another planet. Nevertheless, news of world events occasionally filtered through to us, but didn't seem relevant to us. An assassination attempt on the American presidential candidate? Wow! More important to me that day was finding a supermarket in a small town on the Swedish coast and stocking up on nappies (Pampers, size 3).

Back at my desk, I wrote my first online report after parental leave about the Baltic Sea being too warm as a result of climate change and the resulting increased risk of strong autumn storms. Weather expert Sebastian Wache explained to me during my research for the article that high sea temperatures lead to more severe storms. In the weeks that followed, several storms hit the coast of the USA, the strongest of which was recently Hurricane Milton, fortunately not quite as destructive as initially predicted. On the Baltic Sea, A tanker caught fire off Warnemünde and the impending environmental disaster was narrowly averted. Phew! And that's just news about the environment and the weather. If you look at the news about the world situation, you can get in a bad mood. Still, plenty of material to write a commentary in this column, I thought.

After all, the sea and its protection are important to all water sports enthusiasts. Admittedly, what are sailors supposed to do about a burning tanker? But there are also Environmental topicsthat affect us directly: For example, fouling protection on the underwater hull. An amendment to the Chemicals Prohibition Ordinance will make access to antifouling products containing biocides more difficult from next year. What a topic! But I have the feeling that I'm not quite back from my Büllerbüs summer yet. Not ready for such serious topics and then to discuss them in such a balanced and well-founded manner as my colleague Andreas Fritsch to the seagrass meadows in the last YACHT week. Impressive!

But it's not all bad or discouraging news. With the America's Cup sporting achievements can be marvelled at, with the Vendée Globe the athletes prepare for the upcoming start of the toughest regatta in the world! News to marvel at but also as far away from cruising as possible. I discovered a little news item: a second-grader from Berlin has become world champion and all she needed was a 3.50 metre long inflatable boat and a 9.9 hp outboard motor. How wonderful! I had never heard of the sport of inflatable boat slalom before. No wonder, with only 45 racers between the ages of 6 and 27 in Berlin, the sport is not a mass phenomenon. At speeds of up to 30 kilometres per hour, the riders, some of whom are still very young, race through a parkour marked out in advance with buoys. The ride takes about 90 seconds.

If you're thinking: Wait, children of primary school age and almost 10 hp engine power, is that allowed? Even if it looks like it, the little ones are not alone in the boat. An adult is at the front, holding the line with the emergency stop. The passenger is called "Kielmaus", how cute! In addition to safety aspects, the extra weight in the bow is also necessary so that the little pilots can glide at all and the dinghy doesn't get stuck with the stern. 7-year-old Jana Pietack, world champion from Berlin, beat off competition from children from five nations in Latvia. She is in her second season of the sport and is taking part in the German Youth Championships on the Beetzsee in Brandenburg this weekend. 150 participants have registered.

According to their father, Sven Pietack, who used to be an active dinghy racer himself, it takes around two to three weeks of training before the little ones are confident enough to compete. Sounds as if the little dinghy athletes could also prepare for the competition on a summer cruise in the anchor bay with the dinghy (please don't pick my boat as the turning point!). Ok, very few people have a 3.50 metre dinghy and almost 10 hp with them as a tender. But if you don't want to get out of practice, the dinghy might be enough. And that's when the seriousness of life catches up with me again, and the question arises among my colleagues as to why people still use combustion engines here at all. Wouldn't an electric motor be much more in keeping with the times?

As an advocate of electric drives, I fundamentally agree with this. But for the last inflatable boat test I also know that you can't glide with it. Especially not with a 3.50 metre long inflatable boat and, not to forget, the additional ballast from the "keel mouse". And to be honest, motorsport without the roar of the engine is kind of boring. I think what pleases me most about the news about the young dinghy pilot is the little escape from everyday life; in many ways. The news itself is a nice change from the crises and disasters. Then I imagine that the training and competition will also provide Jana Pietack with a welcome break from school and homework. And for me, it's a bit of escapism as I get used to sitting still at my desk again.

Michael Rinck

YACHT editor

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