Season Plans

It is February and the East Coast is dealing with a real winter! LUCIE does not mind, nicely under her covers, stored inside and preparation work for the 2013 season ongoing. And that is only 12 weeks away with lots of smaller bits and projects still “in the works”…

The team around LUCIE has finished the calendar and travel plans for the 2013 season – it will be a busy season for LUCIE:

We will start early in May to prepare for a tuning and training session in Narragansett Bay, LUCIE will be launched in Newport, RI around May 15, at that time all new sails have to be certified by Andrew Williams and we will check into LUCIE’s measurements and floatation marks as LUCIE needs a fresh certificate. We will have five weeks to train with most of the crew that will sail the World Championship in Germany later in the season and most attention will be given to all the changes and additions to LUCIE’s running rigging.

Once we are happy with all tuning and the new sails LUCIE will be hauled out and prepared for the trip across the Atlantic to Germany. Our latest haul out date will be June 21 but we certainly hope to get LUCIE out a bit sooner than that. And just like last year we will then prepare not only for the long trip to Germany which again will involve some over the road transport both in the US and in Germany but most thought will be given to “what to take?” – we can’t take a spare for everything but we still want to be prepared for all possibilities…

By July 25 LUCIE will then be in Flensburg, Germany where we will put her together, dress and launch her for a second time this season. Attached is a picture of the hosting Yacht Club (FSC) in late November when we visited there to check out the grounds. Around July 28 all of LUCIE’s crew will arrive from almost every corner and get underway immediately to get familiar with the local waters of the Flensburg sound. There are four days of training planned before we finally get to sail under regatta conditions again: the Robbe & Berking Sterling Cup will this year be sailed for from August 2nd to August 4 and will act as the tune up race for the 6 Meter World Championship. The Championship itself will be sailed from August 4 to August 8 and everybody on Team LUCIE is very excited about this event and is looking forward to great racing…

Right after the 6 Metre World Championship concludes we will have to haul LUCIE and get her on the road back to the US as fast as possible: Including various road transport legs, customs, port procedures and the ocean passage the trip from Germany back to Newport will take at least four weeks but LUCIE has one more date on her 2013 calendar:

The North American 6 Metre Championship will happen in Newport, RI on September 20 to September 22 and LUCIE of course will compete in this event as well. So – to make it from the World Championship in Germany to the North American Championship in the US we will have to work swiftly, ensure there are no road blocks and do another round of hauling, packing, unpacking, putting her together, dressing the spars, launching her, stepping the mast and get everything back on board for proper race trim. By that time we should be really good at this…

LUCIE’s 2013 season will then conclude some time in late September after the North American Championship and after three launches and haul outs we hopefully will have some silver to show for it.

Jens