Sailing the Hanne-Marie (Intelligent Design Meets Wind)

This past weekend, a group of friends and I chartered the Hanne-Marie, a large wooden sailboat, for two nights and two days of sailing on the Baltic Sea. The Hanne-Marie was built 1919 in Denmark as a fishing boat. An interesting feature were a number of tanks with different sized holes (for different sized fish and to allow the smaller fish to escape) going directly into the ocean. These allowed water to circulate into where the fish were held, keeping them alive until the harbor was reached. In the early 1980s she was renovated to accomodate guests and has been in posession of a nonprofit since mid 2000. She is almost 20 Meters long, 4 Meters wide and has 140 square Meters of sails.

We had perfect weather, great wind and an amazing time. See a few of the images below. Find out more the Hanne-Marie and plan your own sailing trip here (in German).

Aside from being one of the best weekends I have had in a long time, I fell in love (all over again) with sailing and have decided to finally go for my sailing license this August. With some luck, I should be able to do another week of sailing in the Masuria lake region, Poland, in September. This would then be just a friend and I chartering our own little yacht.

For those of you who have not been on a sailboat (no matter what size) – It is such a very beautiful way to travel – incredibly aesthetic (not just in a visual sense) and fascinating how silently, actually quite magically, sailboats cut through the water propelled only by intelligent design and wind.

There really is nothing like the moment when the sails have been hoisted, the wind starts taking over, and the engine is cut off. Suddenly all is quiet and the boat begins to glide.

 Many thanks to Nadia Cone and SIlia Kaplan for most of the pictures!

Thanks to Johannes Fichte for the picture of the boat under sail.