More German sailors are currently preparing for the next mini-transat than ever before: They want to compete in the legendary one-handed regatt from France to the Caribbean in autumn 2021. Then again 80 soloists will try to conquer the Atlantic in 6.5 meter short deep sea boats.
There is also LinRixgens, 25, from Cologne, who was the first German female sailor to ever finish the race in 2017 (portrait in YACHT 21/2016). Four years after her ocean premiere in the Mini, the medical student now wants to start again in 2021, this time in a Scow, a Wevo 6.50.
Has the Mini-Transat 2021 firmly in view: LinRixgens
On YACHT online, she reports on the preparation for the offshore adventure and the challenges of a mini-transat campaign in which the skippers are much more than just sailors: they organize and finance their project on their own and train to take part in the mini-transat Transat, with which many professional sailors have already collected their first offshore miles.
In the first part, Rixgens reported on taking over her bare, new boat and the mammoth task of getting it ready for sailing. In the second part, in the summer of 2019, we finally got on the water for the first time. But the actual training season should begin right now, after all, the time until the start of the regatta will pass very quickly in a year and a half. In her third blog post, the sailor and budding doctor writes about the disappointment of suddenly being thwarted by the corona pandemic and about her strategy of shifting training to dryness.
In mid-March, as part of my medical studies, I was doing an internship at the Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine at the Hamburg Landungsbrücken. At first there were fewer and fewer patients who came to the ambulance, then I was sent home so as not to take any unnecessary risk of infection. For a brief moment it occurred to me that I would now have much more time to sail than I thought. After all, my boat was ready to sail on the jetty and shorthanded sailing is really associated with a minimal risk of infection.
Lonely boat in the Strander harbor: LinRxigens' Mini 6.50
Even when the information came the next day that tourists were no longer allowed to enter Schleswig-Holstein, I dared to think about continuing to train. After all, training on a Mini cannot be described as tourism with a swim stop and beer on the jetty. But when all of Kiel's ports were closed at the latest, it was clear that I would have to leave my boat on the jetty in the best sailing weather.
Train in your own four walls
Home office for me too. What can you do big as a sailor at home? First of all there is still a lot on the slip. Finally finish laminating the solar panel mounts that have been started, produce a number of soft padeyes to attach the freshly arrived lee sails at some point after the ban has been lifted, take stock of the on-board pharmacy and muck out the tool case properly.
Another item ticked off the endlessly long to-do list: The holder for the solar panel is ready
Sport is of course also very important in the preparation of such a campaign and sometimes it was difficult to take the time to do it in addition to the strenuous study. Every day you can either go jogging outside or on the rowing ergometer. I also motivate myself to do weight training within my own four walls.
Look at the weather, strategy and routing
But open sea sailing is quite complex, I use the time to further develop another extremely important aspect. The ThemWeather, Strategy and Routing. So I roll over Jean-Yves Bernot's "Météo et stratégie", look at weather maps, and familiarize myself with the routing software.
All of these are of course important aspects of an offshore project and, especially in the last season, I often missed them. I was too busy getting my boat ready to sail and then using the remaining time to go sailing.
Employment for a few hours on dry land: manufacturing padeyes - as ultra-light fittings for the deck
But actually I had a tight schedule. From the crane date, which was scheduled for the end of February and was hard to come by in wintery northern Germany, to the departure for France for the first regatt, I had exactly seven weekends to train. During the week a practical year in the hospital, at the weekend test the wind angles for the various gennakers, perfect solo maneuvers, find out the autopilot settings.
That was the plan.
Everything turned upside down
At the beginning of the year I was finally able to move to northern Germany, close to the sea. My studies in Belgium had kept me for so many years, now I was able to complete the last months of the practical year in Germany and it is only an hour's drive from my boat. But with the Corona crisis, I'm still stuck in the apartment and waiting to be used again in another hospital.
Sure, sports events are now absolutely no priority and are being canceled. Everything that I've been working on over the past few years alongside my studies is now fading into the background. And of course I can understand that and with my medical knowledge I can understand it absolutely. It is an exceptional situation for everyone. I can be happy: I and my fellow human beings are fine, my existence is not at stake. Others are currently hit much worse.
The sailing training has to be done at the back for the time being. It's a shame, too, thinks the single-handed tipper LinRixgens
But I'm still an athlete. I planned three seasons in advance with my new Mini. These are long-term considerations and long-term decisions that you make. I have contracts with my sponsors and have invested a lot of money. For this year, the one-handed regatt "Les Sables - les ç ores - les Sables" (SAS for short) is planned as the highlight, 2400 nautical miles in the summer from France to the Azores and back.
What's next?
Will the regatta take place? Will it be pushed back a little? How should I sail the required 800 nm within class mini regattas as a qualification if all regattas in which I registered and got a place are canceled? Sure, the Classe Mini will come up with changes and relaxations, but when and which ones? And if there are no regattas this year, what will happen to the Mini Transat in autumn 2021? Will the deadline remain or will everything be postponed by a year? Lots of question marks and speculation.
I got really good at spontaneous rescheduling, but you just can't plan with so many uncertain factors. Not yet.
The skipper
LinRixgens, 25, learned to sail at Opti and later successfully completed European regattas. As a student, she has already crossed the Atlantic twice on a two-masted schooner. This gave rise to her desire to combine deep sea and regatta sailing, which she later began on the "HaspHamburg". In 2015 Rixgens got into mini sailing. To prepare for the Transat, she moved to LRochelle and took two semesters of leave.
The medical student from Cologne was honored by Trans-Ocean for her participation in the Mini-Transat 2017 (49th place). She was the first German woman to finish the solo Atlantic race. In 2021 she wants to be there again and attack on a new Wevo 6.5 from Italy, a new mini design with a scow bug.
Alone across the Atlantic: A look back at the Mini-Transat 2017 in Pogo 2
