THERE COMES A TIME!
Last June on the second outing aboard their newly launched Contest 55CS Anna Maria, the Pölzl family was pleased to sail straight into and win the Sevenstar Contest Cup! In quick pursuit, there followed a month-long 1,300-mile Baltic cruise, and this year they’re bound south for Barcelona and a very different Cup, the America’s Cup.
The Baltic and then Barcelona via the Bay of Biscay, that’s quite some adventuring for a family more familiar with island hopping in the tideless Balearics; but there comes a time when you just want to do things differently! That’s certainly so for Georg and Eveline Pölzl, originally keel-less lake sailors who bought their first ‘sea boat’ 15 years ago, with a base from then on in Palma. “In our holidays we’d go back and forth to Ibiza and Menorca and around Mallorca. But after all these years we tired of going to the same places and we said, ok, now we are a little older, if we really want to travel more, we need a different boat! “What we had was very nice, a French-built fast performance cruiser, but to live on it for longer periods than a fortnight or so? Maybe it is the right boat and you can if you are 30 or 40, but if you are 60, no! So, we were looking for the right boat and found Contest.”
OPEN TO PERSUASION “We visited the shipyard in Medemblik and were really very impressed by the high quality of the manufacturing and everything. We wanted to buy the Contest 50CS but then my wife Eveline and younger son Juergen argued that we needed to think about a garage for the tender, and with the interior plan we wanted that took us up to the Contest 55CS!”
In conversation, Juergen’s elder brother Stefan adds that the decision to go with Contest was not only about the quality. “It was the spirit here at Contest. The people were very welcoming, very open, and it was, to be honest, fun from the start.
“We stuck very much to the standard arrangements," Stefan goes on to say, "because with the original layout, the quality of build and the systems and detail, with what Contest already has in place, there was no need to individualise so much. And after that we then just chose the colours and materials quite simply with Nico, our project manager, in just one day at the yard.”
Things did get added, and the rig choice was, Georg says, “For the standard aluminium spars but with the best North Sails, the moulded composite 3Di. It’s really worth it to have the best sails.”
Stefan says in support, “It’s a sailing boat so to invest in the sail system is most logical!” A decision further endorsed, perhaps, by their win at the Contest Cup straight after launching – although having Wouter Kollman from North Sails aboard may just have helped! It was certainly instructional seeing Anna Maria surge forward with her Helix top-down furling headsail played so effectively on the downwind legs – halyard eased for the broader line, and tack hauled short for the closer angles. Poetry in motion! SETTING COURSE It also taught the simplicity of sail-handling a Contest 55CS for the summer voyage ahead, up through the Kiel Canal into the Baltic Sea and a tour tracing the German coast before rounding Denmark’s Zealand [Sjælland], making a touch-down in Sweden, and then circling back to Medemblik. Harlingen, Hamburg, Gluckstadt, Rendsburg, Kiel, Flensburg, Olpenitz, Keil, Heiligenhafen, Rostock, Stralsund, Lauterbach, Rundvilm, Klintholm, Kopenhagen, Skovsoved, Helsingborg, Hundested, Kalundburg, Kiel, Harlingen, Medemblik. Names all familiar, names all now visited by Anna Maria and a changing crew of family and friends through August 2023.
“As we usually sail the Mediterranean, this was a totally new experience to us. We had never experienced northern sailing before,” says Georg. And the highlights began early in the trip with its many city-stops. First Hamburg, which Georg knows well by land. “We have been many times, and I used to work in Hamburg years ago, but to visit by your own boat is really a special experience. It's so nice, and we found this harbour next to the Elbphilharmonie and close by the Elbtower. Very special.” Then Kiel with its super attractive Germaniahafen from where Anna Maria’s first crew-swap could be made so simply with the central train station just a five-minute walk away. Such a different take on city visits. This set the tone and pace, with rarely more than one night at any stopover. Copenhagen, quite naturally, was among those that tempted a longer stay, after a night sail up from Klintholm. Here, again, a berth was found in the shade of a musical landmark and architectural standout, this time the Copenhagen Opera House. And good fun was had also enjoying the pop-up culture and the hustle and bustle of Ofelia Plads on the harbour front.
Helsinborg in Sweden then followed with more waterside antics, the end-of-semester students attempting the traditional longest jump made towards Denmark, all ending in the water at best two metres from shore! Then there was calm, in tranquil Hundested, population 8,000, with a history of fishing and the products of today’s artisanry feeding the town’s seasonal visitors.
THE RIGHT TRANSITION Halfway around, how was it, how was this change in yachting style? “It was great, perfect,” Georg says. “So comfortable all the time, even with six people on the boat. There’s always enough space. And for some on board even enough for gymnastics as there is so much room on deck! And also, always we were doing very nice cooking. The kitchen is perfect, it is like home. “Before, to be honest, two weeks was enough on our other boat. With increasing age, you feel your bones!” Georg laughs. “Yes, this was a main motivation for buying such a boat as this Contest.” Continuing on westward, the weather stayed good as it had throughout with no storms and little rain, yet the final leg back across the North Sea did provide a little more excitement than might have been wanted, with boisterous conditions through a night of heavy shipping and a guerilla fishing fleet preferring to keep their AIS switched off. But as was experienced at their inaugural Contest Cup, the boat is swift in manoeuvre and the rig easily managed, with the push-button, in-mast reefing a real confidence booster. This is not just in the speed and ease of operation reducing or increasing sail, but in there being no need to head into wind for these adjustments,
just staying on course, so saying goodbye to all the noisy flogging and flapping of the family’s previous lazy jack reefing system, prone to raising tensions and unnerving the less experienced.
LOOKING FORWARD After wintering in Medemblik for service and a few extra add-ons, the new 2024 season looked to the south, yes, missing the possible rematch in the celebratory 20th edition of the Contest Cup, but heading to another and very exciting Cup regatta – as spectator at the America’s Cup in Barcelona, Spain in October. The family are fans, having been at both Valencia (2007) and Bermuda (2017), and can’t wait to see the new foilers. Breaking the impending 2,000 nautical mile rhum line into more pleasant cruising legs, this now would be a test of tidal sailing at a whole new magnitude, but a challenge Georg and family looked forward to. First, through May, a trip up the River Thames to Tower Bridge, at London’s heart, and down along England’s south coast before crossing to Cherbourg. A break then until August when the voyage resumes, crossing Biscay and edging Iberia before shooting the Straits of Gibraltar and on up the Spanish coast to Anna Maria’s waiting Barcelona berth. And there this yacht’s namesake is bound to step aboard. So far in this story we’ve not mentioned Georg’s and Eveline’s daughter, Anna Maria. On board as she was for that first Cup victory, the name carries true distinction!
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