The “Silverrudder” regatta off Funen on the Baltic Sea is not for cowards.
Finn Kenter from Seeshaupt had a lot of adventures.
Seeshaupt
- In the end, a lot of seaman's yarn was spun again.
Some sailors suddenly found themselves caught in a fishing net with their boat, others got stuck on one of the numerous sandbanks and tried desperately to get their boat afloat again.
But no matter what happened to the skippers at the “Silverrudder” around the Danish island of Funen last September, they will not forget it anytime soon.
"It's in the direction of being at the mercy of nature," said Finn Kenter, summarizing his experience.
For the helmsman from the Yacht Club Seeshaupt (YCSS) it was the premiere at the largest single-handed regatta in the world, which is given the highest respect in the scene as the "Ironman of the Sea".
Sailing: The calm on the Baltic Sea is pushing Fenn Kenter to its limits
The 20-year-old had 130 nautical miles ahead of him.
When he got one of the 450 coveted starting places when registering at the beginning of March 2020, he dreamed of a good breeze and high waves.
When he arrived on Funen a few days before the regatta, the wind was extremely strong and Kenter realized that “I would soon reach my limits”.
But nature not only has mighty, sublime and sometimes merciless features, it can also be quiet and quiet and thus push people to their limits.
When Kenter crossed the starting line in front of Svendborg on September 18th last year, there was hardly a breeze.
Only the current carried him out to the Great Belt.
Almost nothing should change in the lull until he reached the finish line after 45 hours and 30 minutes.
The student started together with 311 adventurous people, and in the end just 29 sailors managed to circumnavigate the island in the permitted time - that's not even ten percent.
Kenter was one of them.
"I am totally happy that I made it," he said happily that he was one of the few chosen who had not let anything discourage them.
At the age of 13, Kenter gained his first experience of sailing on the high seas
Actually, a sailor from Lake Starnberg does not immediately think of regattas on the open sea.
Although the German Touring Yacht Club (DTYC) in Tutzing and the Bavarian Yacht Club (BYC) in Starnberg have been dealing with the matter for a number of years, the majority of local skippers feel at home on the inland waters or sail in races on the North and Baltic Seas or in the Mediterranean always a course close to the coast.
When Kenter got his first sailing experience on the high seas, he was 13 years old.
At the Franco-German youth camp of the "Optimists" on the Quiberon peninsula in Brittany, they went far out into the Atlantic in one day.
That was completely new to him.
But somehow Kenter felt in his element with his nutshell.
“It was a wonderful experience,” he says, and fondly remembers his initiation as an ocean sailor.
At that time he landed in seventh place.
With the same result he also finished the "Silverrudder".
Kenter trusted the “Kia ora”, his parents' 30-year-old H-boat, on which he had once learned to sail and which he has steered in regattas in recent years.
Due to its length, the “Silverrudder” classified it in the “Small keelboat” category and was therefore almost hopelessly inferior to the high-tech competition.
“It's a bit as if Formula 1 racing cars were racing against trucks and cars,” said Kenter, describing the balance of power.
In the end, however, technology should not play a role at all, only the will power of the sailors.
"It was a fight against the doldrums and the weaker self," was Kenter's conclusion.
Sailing: After the doldrums, Finn Kenter has to struggle with thick fog
All the boats crossed close to land, but the challenges were gigantic for everyone.
Kenter suffered from the “relentless lull” as he reverently referred to it, and he was frightened when on the last day a “frightening mist” swallowed up and swallowed everything around him.
In this soup only the constant warning signals of the freighters and ferries could be heard.
How far away they really were from him, he could only guess.
What chance would he have had if one of these giants suddenly appeared out of nowhere in front of him?
Sailing: Finn Kenter could hardly think of sleep during the two days at sea
The regatta was always a risk.
The Upper Bavarian not only lived with the fear of going overboard.
"That couldn't happen," he clarified.
Regular meals were out of the question.
It would have cost too much attention to use your gas cooker more often during the day.
Kenter also had to manage his strength, because normal sleep was out of the question on the Baltic Sea.
He spent two nights at sea.
“I didn't want to lie down for more than ten minutes,” he said, explaining his strategy of taking the urgently needed breaks.
But then he slept for almost half an hour, but then felt really fresh again.
After the first night he went to the Little Belt.
Half the way was done.
Only there was no more breeze and the current drove his boat back out of the strait.
Kenter dropped the anchor and waited.
But nothing happened: no wind, no progress.
The sailors around him fared no better.
At some point they capitulated, started the engine and gave up.
However, Kenter did not have an engine.
So he couldn't give up that quickly.
He just held out and went to sleep.
Sailing: For Finn Kenter, giving up was never an option at the “Silverrudder”
28 hours had passed since the start.
Time was running out.
Boats with about 30 nautical miles to go were in an almost hopeless position in the face of the calm.
“And I still had a good 60 nautical miles to go,” said Kenter.
And only two alternatives: give up and fight your way to the next port after Middelfart?
"Out of the question for me," he vowed to himself.
So he trusted his luck.
The next port would have been Assens.
Then he could have got out of the way.
Kenter insisted on feeling his way forward bit by bit and perhaps reaching the goal that way.
But then the wind picked up.
The up to then desperate man wasted no more thought on throwing the chunks down.
The “Kia ora” suddenly made six to seven knots of speed.
“The chances of making it increase,” he told himself well.
Kenter took the chance he didn't have.
After another night on the Baltic Sea, he set course for Svendborg Sound.
But how was he supposed to find the finish line in the fog?
The skipper did not know how many hours had passed before he spotted a small rubber boat with an organizer's flag.
She showed him the safe way into the fog-submerged target.
A lot of sailor's yarn for a young man from the edge of the Alps.
