(Berlin, Germany)- Enjoy this heart-warming story of how the J/70 GRÜN Sailing Team came to be for a closely-knit group of friends since childhood. It’s called, “The Road to the Little J”. “Everything began in dinghies when we were kids ... regattas at local and district level from Opti’s up to 420’s. Most of our team members already sailed against each other, then later on, together as a team. After schools and studies were completed, well all went to work at various places. But, we all wanted to sail intensively again. Somehow. Somewhere. On some kind of boat that we could all sail on.
We decided we would start with a One-Tonner. Call us crazy, but we did. For several years we sailed our 40 foot One-Ton boat. However, we soon realized that rating system sailing was not really our thing. In fact, we didn’t like it at all, too many games played by all the owners and rules-makers.
There had to be a one-design boat we could sail instead. Soon, the choice fell to getting a Platu 25. We trial sailed it in November 2003 in Berlin and, without further ado, we also bought one!
It was a very ambitious boat for us. More importantly, it was somewhat sensible and we could move it from regatta to regatta. We sailed better and better over the years and were among the top three in the Platu 25 rankings for the past five years. Not bad for a bunch of amateurs.
In 10 years of racing the Platu 25, we have gained a lot of experience during Worlds, Europeans and as well at local and foreign class regattas. Our crew is still completely the same, only the place of residences have changed for some. So, we have to travel to the events starting from Ulm, Rostock, Berlin and Hamburg, which means a considerable logistic effort, and also makes training with the core crew almost impossible.
Also, the selection of our boat has changed. We followed with great interest the development of the Deutsche Segel-Bundesliga and the J/70 - amazing to watch the growth of the J/70 class and the enthusiastic participation of German yacht clubs and sailing clubs in the Bundesliga. So, instead of accepting ever lower number of entries, we decided to sell the Platu 25 and to buy a J/70!!
That was the right decision!! Thanks to Bo Teichmann from Mittelmann’s Werft, we could purchase a J/70 from the 2014 Bundesliga series.
Our sponsors were also very convinced by this idea. Thankfully, we could continue to count on the support of our long-term sponsorship partners. As a result, we could start well-prepared in our first season sailing the J/70s.
Starting in February 2015, we sailed for the first time on GER468 at the Primo Cup in Monaco. For us, it was also our entire crew’s introduction to a boat with an asymmetric spinnaker!!
Thirty-two boats on the starting line! Wow, this rarely happened in the last few years on the Platu 25, really rare! At the end of the Primo Cup, after sailing the J/70 for the first time we had a good ending- 11th place! Sailing the J/70 is fun, plus it’s a very nice boat! Great competition, too!
The balance of our 2015 sailing season has a busy schedule- MaiOR, Lake Wannsee Race, Kiel Week and J/70 Challenge. These will be followed by the European Championship at Yacht Club Monaco in October. And then, also still more training sessions are planned. Much to learn yet!
Our GRÜN Sailing Team GER 468 is comprised of the following crew: Jens Ahlgrimm, Carsten Wernecke, Mathias Gedrange and Stephan Mölle. We look forward to seeing all of you on the race track soon! Perhaps, tip a few good pints of German beer with you as well! Here’s our website- http://www.gruensailing.de”
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