20250907

Raid Extreme 2025

Raban Stumme and his father Ralf-Peter took line honours with their 120-old Löwelies. In just 5 hours they completed the course.
Canoeists Bert and Ingo Müller came second, canoe sailor Koos made third, followed by Bert and his 20' feet catamaran and Josien with a Liteboat XP. There were 24 boats including a Drascombe Lugger. Both Friday and Sunday provided brilliant sailing, but on the day itself we had to be very patient in very light conditions. In the afternoon the wind picked up but for most competitors it was too late to make a difference. However spirits were up and after the prize giving we had a barbecue, a singalong and good fun!

Friday 5 September

The afternoon was perfect for sailing. Hubert and Joost went for a sail to test the water and met Herman and Steffie arriving with their Drascombe Coaster after a long sailing trip from the easternmost part of Groningen. The German contingent of Bert M, Ingo M and Ingo E arrived halfway the afternoon with a two-person canoe and a Europe dinghy that had been fitted with rowing oars. Old hands Frits, Joost, Josien, Gerben, Bert, Rene and Jan brought the same boats as last year. Bart brought his 20' cat 'Famke II', Marcel was sailing his Acorn skiff, while Koos had added a gennaker to his Artemis canoe, Daan, Jelle and Henk took turns in Henks Oughtred double-ender. Ladia arrived late in the evening with a sailing canoe with outriggers. There were quite a few newcomers this year: Marlies with Creizic 'Meisje Loos', Henk and Heike with Arctic Tern 'Magnes', Diederik with Sooty Tern 'Flott', Herman and Steffie with a Drascombe Coaster, Michael with a Skerry, Stefan with a Lettmann canoe and Willem with a sailing canoe with single outrigger (isn't that a proa?). Veterans Onno and Anneke could not compete but brought their yacht 'Zeeroos'. Camping was challenging with most of the grass replaced by concrete tiles to make space for campervans. We used the remaining strips of grass as well as we could which resulted in a crowded but cosy raid-camp.

At the briefing Koos and Hubert revealed the 'Raid-man', a totem pole with an end-date to signify that they will step back from non-organizing the Raid Extreme after 9 years. Koos invited others to step in which started a few conversations between some of the old hands.
After the briefing we all went to Iterij bij de Mune and had an enjoyable meal.

Saturday 6 September

Bart's alarm clock woke us all at 0500 hours but most of us preferred to snooze for another hour. Koos put on his wolf-hat and went to make coffee at the club house, helped by Hubert and Klarie.

At 0650 everybody assembled at the beach for the countdown. There was a S1 with a forecast for SW-2 in the afternoon. After the start, half the fleet took the clockwise route starting at Hoek van de Bant. The other half decided for the counterclockwise route and headed for Ezumazijl.

Burkhard was helming on Hatseflats while Klarie sailed with Onno and Anneke on the Zeeroos. It was the first time Burkhard sailed with a lug rig. Especially pointing lower upwind was a challenge but he got used to it quickly. The new telltails proved to be useful too.

It was a bit chilly with just enough wind to keep going, so some rowing was required to help the boat speed. The new oars helped to reach a good speed with Hatseflats.
The Lauwersmeer was beautiful with strands of mist floating over the water.

Burkhard and I first went to Ezumazijl where we got sidetracked at the crossing between four waterways. Our next waypoint was Lunegat which we reached at 1012 hours thanks to a lot of rowing. We dropped our plan to head for Zoutkamp and instead went to the Gin-and-Tonic island where we crossed Diederik who claimed he must have passed Gin-and-tonic a couple of times without recognizing it from the photos.
We sailed on to the Booze Wijf. When we reached the Schoolplein we finally found wind and quickly got to the GPS location. From then on it was less than half an hour to Hoek van de Bant. There was no time to reach Zoutkamp so we called it a day and finished at 1442 hours.

At the prizegiving Onno stepped forward to congratulate Koos and Hubert with 9 years of non-organizing the Raid Extreme. Onno found it unthinkable that the event should stop here and had spoken to fellow participants to ensure that the Raid Extreme will continue to bring sailors together like no other event has done before!

And then it was time to finally fire up the barbecues and talk about the past day. Hubert and his brother-in-law played shanties while the meat burned on the grill. After the barbecue the diehards had a singalong in the Omaho clubhouse with evergreens like the Wild Rover and 'Kleine Cafe aan de Haven'.

Sunday 7 September

Sunday morning started with making coffee at the clubhouse, doing the dishes and having a relaxed breakfast. After the light winds of Saturday it was again a good sailing day with a fresh easterly breeze. During the afternoon everybody made their way home, hopefully to return to a new Extreme Raid 2026!