Training weekend 2026! 💙🧡

In the last weekend of May Aqua went to De Schakel in Langweer to do some sailing training on Valken! The weekend was sponsored by Thymos, so many thanks to them!!

When we got to De Schakel we were surprised to find out that another group of students was also staying here. They told us they planned on going sailing the next day, but that none of them knew how to, which was a bit amusing.

Because of the long summer evening we still had a lot of sunlight left on Friday evening and decided to do some quick training before nightfall. Afterwards we set op our beds and tents on the Valken, we had some drinks and went to sleep.

On Saturday we got started bright and early! After breakfast we packed our bags into the voor- and achteronder to get onto the lake and start the training! We practiced sail trim and staying course, overstag and gijpen. It was super sunny all day and had good wind in the morning!

We had an energy dip in the afternoon so some of us went to get icecream at the local cafetaria in Langweer. After a quick refreshing treat and a short walk we were ready to get going again!

In the afternoon we practiced man overboord! And because the weather was perfect, Elena and Eilán were the real man overboord (instead of just rescuing a buoy, though we did pretend that the buoy was a cat). It was fun to practice for real, and really understand the challenge that is getting a person back inside the boat.

We went back to the harbour for some pasta for dinner. After which we got back out on the lake again to catch the last bit of sunlight! We were having a relaxing evening, watching the sunset and the many hot air balloons that were in the sky, when our peace was disturbed. A small boat came speeding towards us, turning away at the last second, splashing a big wave of water onto the boat and getting us super wet. They went to our other Valk before turning back towards us to do it again. We did not want to let two teenage boys spoil our mood, so we decided to just view it as something to turn into a fun story (we also reported them to the harbour).

On Sunday we started our day a bit later, since there was very little wind in the early morning. When we got out on the water we were happy to find that it was actually perfect weather for sailing: sun and wind! We practiced our hogerwal, and lagerwal, which we all did very well! The wind died down again towards the afternoon so we spent some time working on our motoring skills, learning to put a rif in the sail and how to lower the mast.

Since there was still no wind, we decided to meet the other boat on the lake, tie them together and chill in the sun! We swam for a bit, had some snacks and drinks and just enjoyed the weather.