20180902

Raid Extreme 2018

This report appeared on the website of the Raid Extreme (https://raidextreme.wixsite.com/raidextreme)

The Extreme Raid 2018 was held on lake Lauwersmeer in the extreme North of the Netherlands on the 1st of September. It was organized by canoe sailor Koos Winnips and a small team of locals, including your reporter. This year's event had 21 entries sailed by 45 competitors. The competitors came from wide and far. Sail designer David Valverde came from the US. Mathieu Bonnier and his brother Thomas made a detour to the Lauwersmeer while driving home in the French Alps. Other travellers came from Berlin, Stuttgart and Bremen. Most competitors however came from the Netherlands.
There was also much diversity in the racing craft. Wim brought the 'wet-bicycle', which looked like a SUP board with pedal power. There were 6 sailing canoes and a Solway Dory. The smallest boats were two 11ft GRP dinghies sailed by Benjamin and Fred. The largest boat was the fast Liteboat XP raid dinghy sailed by Matthieu and Thomas. In their attempt to win overall the Bonnier brothers were joined by 2 racing catamarans, a Goat Island Skiff and an i550 sports boat with pedal power. Benjamin and Christiane brought their Zugvogel 'Schleppinsel' from Stuttgart. Hubert and Richard sailed 'Hatseflats', a home-built Norwegian pram with a Tirrik rig. Other traditional boats were a Blekinge Eka, and a Caledonian yawl with a 23m2 gennaker.
The format of the event was to arrive at Oostmahorn on Friday, give it your all in the race on Saturday, relax on Sunday. The race itself was a simple challenge: start at sunrise, collect tokens at 6 checkpoints scattered around the Lauwersmeer, return to finish by 1700 hours. The tokens could be collected in any order. The winner would be the first to return with all 6 tokens. No handicaps or rating formulas were used. There was no need to worry about food as two meals and two breakfasts were provided for each paying competitor.

Friday 31 August

During the competitors arrived one by one. After the boats had been sorted out, we had a Chinese meal for all competitors. It was very enjoyable and friendly. Most competitors slept in tents on the grass at the Marina or in campervans.

Saturday 1 September

Breakfast was at 0600 but everybody was in a hurry to get their boats ready in time. The competitors met at the flagpole in the marina for the countdown. There was no wind, just a breath of air from the northwest, expected to veer to the north and build to a force 2 later in the day.
At dawn (0652 hours) a horn signal signalled the start on the race and everyone hurried to their boats. Most competitors planned to collect their tokens on a clockwise tour. This was called the 'Northern Route'.
Koos, Joost, the Bonnier brothers and a few others decided to take the 'Southern Route' and sail counter-clockwise.
Richard and I took Hatseflats on the Northern route.
On a puff of wind we got to our first stop at the sea dyke. Other competitors who had just arrived went about like zombies looking for the box with tokens. Apparently it had been stolen during the night. We took pictures of each other at the waterside as proof and noted down the arrival time in our logbook.
As we sailed to the next checkpoint, the wind dropped to a whisper. We started rowing to get ahead of the other boats. We arrived at the 'Booze Wijf' together with the crew of a Blekinge Eka, a traditional oak-planked Scandinavian workboat. While we collected our tokens, the crew of the Blekinge Eka stepped down their mast for faster rowing. As they rowed away, we expected to catch up later as the wind filled in.
We continued in 'motorsailing' mode, sailing and paddling for the extra knot of speed. When we reached 'Mai-Tai' island, the gargantuan German sailing canoe had already left. They had celebrated their arrival with freshly mixed Mai-Tai cocktails and cold meat. Well done! Now we had three tokens in the pocket, three more to go.
We made our way to Hunzegat, by far the longest distance from Oostmahorn. After running aground a few times we decided to stay within the shipping channel. On our downwind run we rarely clocked more than 4 knots. We crossed some of the faster boats returning from Hunzegat. The catamarans were very fast in the light condtions. Our token at the checkpoint was a packet of paracetamol. Just as well, as the Blekinge Eka gave us quite a headache. With their rig down, they were rowing faster than we could 'motorsail' in the light conditions. Paddling gave us an extra knot of speed and helped with tacking. We were gradually gaining on Benjamin in his 11ft dinghy and overtook him just before we got to the main lake.
We decided to skip the checkpoint at Lunegat and sail and row up to Ezumazijl for our last token of the day. We got to the finish with half an hour to spare.
First to finish were Gerben and son having sailed their F18 catamaran along the Northern route. They arrived together with the Bonnier brothers who had taken the Southern route with their Liteboat XP. When getting out of the boat Thomas fell and hurt his hand. Gerben's teenager son ran quickly to the finish pole, beating Thomas by 2 seconds.

Some other snippets:

• One day before the Raid, Fred bought an lid boat for 140 EUR from the Internet, same as his brother Ben. Fred almost killed himself clilecting 5 tokens but won the 'Concours d'Elegance' with his 'new' boat.
• Sail designer David Valverde helped another canoe sailor to set up his brand new canoe just before the Raid. They clilected all 6 tokens but finished just outside the time limit. However they were happy with their 58km maiden trip.
• Wim took it easy and made 4 checkpoints with his Wet-Bicycle. Quite a success, since he had not cycled more than 20km before. He was crazy fast when cycling, but the many stops under way may have hurt his speed.
• Eckhard tried to take it easy with his fliding two-masted sailing canoe. Along the way he got into a frenzy and badly wanted to make all 6 checkpoints. Unfortunately he came in after the time limit. Somewhere in the heat of this battle he lost his Pink Flamingo as well.