Lady Ann - Post script

Before finishing this log with a personal remark of some of Lady Ann's
crew, a very big thank you to all our loved ones that we left behind at
home; for allowing us to 'do the ARC', for trusting Lady Ann and her
crew to bring us all across safe and sound, and generally for making
this trip possible for Ingo, Thomas, Ronald, Frank, Fritze and Maria.

Ingo: Auf Wache in der ersten wilden Nacht mit einem etwas flauen
Gefuehl im Magen dachte: welcher Teufel hat dich denn geritten, dieses
Abenteuer zu starten? Doch dann am Ruder zu spueren, wie Lady Ann
gutmuetig gehorchte, kam schnell ein Gefuehl der Sicherheit auf. Das
auch am Ende des Toerns die Lust am Segeln voll da war liegt wohl am
Skipper mit seinem nimmer mueden Assistenten und dann nicht zuletzt am
tollen Miteinander unserer Crew. Drum als Resumee: mit allen von Euch
mache ich das immer wieder...Danke Lady Ann, du hast uns, wenn auch
manchmal unter leichten Stoehnen oder Fluegelfalttern, heroisch
ertragen geflattert.

Thomas: Segeln mit'te 8'te Mann und kranke Genua tusse ueber de Atlanik,
voll krass, Mann. Remarkable journey, stunning moments with nature and
breathtaking moments with men aboard....Please, many happy returns. Good
luck and many thanks to brave, old LADY ANN !

Frank: A dream became true... Under the strong hand of skip captain Edo
"Bligh" we turned from " we will cross the ocean" to " we did cross the
ocean" :-) and learned to steer as the hell always "maximum broad reach
course with maximum speed and NEVEREVER flapping of the sails!!!!",
otherwise be punished with a haunted look by our just "Mr. Nice Guy"
;-). Never felt any greater disharmony in our crew, not even
self-evident 3 weeks in a sauna-temperatured alu-tin. I learned a lot
about stearing in the ocean, but also fishing, baking\cooking on a
permanent rolling even 65-feeter. Before this trip I was premediating,
if I would belong to the group of transoceanears, who would say " never
ever" or " yeah, every time again" and now I can determine: " Yes, I
will do it again, perhaps sometimes the way back from British Virgin
Islands to the
Azores??? I am glad, that I did this adventure and want to say "thank
you" to Lady Ann, to our something sarcastic blogging Skip, the whole
sympathic crew and thereby in speciality our always performing
magic-pasta-specialities-Italien\no, sorry, Sardinian, deckshand and
future skipper Davide!!! Thanks for this experience!!!

Davide: Finally here we are.....After two nice sailing weeks with this
"strange group". We are just 40 miles to destination... and now we can
really smell the St. Lucia welcome commite parfume (the guys on board
perfectly know what are we talking about)!!! So, champagne is in the
fridge just waiting to be opened tonight for celebrate our succsesfull
crossing..... Ciao!!

Edo: Enjoyed sailing with 'Ze Zjermans' and Ronald tremendously. It is
amazing how positive and flexible everyone turned out to be. It will be
difficult to find a more helpfull and cheerfull crew for next years'
ARC. But there was a certain lack of discipline with leaving on cabin
lights and putting the mugs back in the cupboard the wrong way. So, if
asked to skipper another ARC I will most likely say: 'I will do it on
one condition: next time no more Mr Nice Guy'.