Let the race begin!

Boats on the sea floor
see all photos »

The festival in Antwerp was drawing to a close, which was good because we were all starting to get bored of this town. Four full days is totally enough. We were there to sail, so why the hell are we sitting in port most of the time?! Not cool.

As another service to the host city, the tallships left one by one parading by the docks in order for all too see. It was really awesome seeing all the crowds on the docks staring at these majestic boats sailing by.

It was like a shot out of the 19th century.

Attention!
see all photos »

In addition, we were all "saluting" the passing boats which meant standing at attention on one side and being completely in awe of everything that was passing us by. In short, amazing.

After we got past all the crowds, the trip out to sea was long and tedious. It was a really hot day so all we wanted to do was lounge around on deck. But no, there was shit to be done. Like most large European ports, the way out to sea is through a long-ass canal that protects the city from the storms that are so common. These canals are really long and windy and full of locks for which you have to wait hours in order to get the tides right.

19th century
see all photos »

I don't know if all you know what a lock is, but it's used primarily for raising or lowering boats between stretches of water at different levels, like when you have to get from one point with a certain (often controlled) water height--such as Amsterdam--to one that varies and is rarely in line with the control. So instead of the boat being moved up and down, water level is varied so the boat rises or falls on its own.

Anyway, with large differences in water height (as was the case that particular day), this can take a while. And in scorching heat, it's not entirely pleasant. So in true goof-off fashion, we dug out our fire hose, hooked it up to the water pump and got into a huge water fight with the neighboring boats since they were all in the races with us and seemed to be fun-loving. Everything would've been alright had they not had a much larger and more powerful hose that kicked our ass into submission. But it was all in good fun and definitely passed the time.

Getting passed
see all photos »

On the way out, we passed a few smaller docks whose boats were sitting on the sea bottom due to the extremely low tide at the time. It was so cool.

Then we changed and got ready for the beginning of the races at some agreed upon geographical marker outside of Antwerp. Since we were in the same category as all the other tallships, we lined up with them waiting for the signal to start. It was like a shot out of the 19th century with tallships surrounding our measly little boat. It was so beautiful that it brings tears to my eyes. Orgasmic, even. Unfortunately I can only put up a couple pictures here, but you get the idea. Amazing.

As soon as the signal was given over the radio, everyone turned off their engines and set sail. The wind was good so we were making good progress, but still being passed by all the other ships. Good thing they instituted a handicap for certain older vessels--such as ourselves--otherwise we would've finished dead last. I mean, we didn't end up doing too well, but it was still very respectable.

So yeah, we sailed.