The strange black boat introducing itself

A guest contribution by inch by inch. 

(Copyright: rudern.de/ Seyb)

First of all: sorry, Judith! I really did not want to steal the show from you at the european championships. But you know, my extraordinary look is making it hard sometimes...


For all these who have never seen someone like me before, let me tell you my story:

I can proudly say of myself: "Ick bin ein Berliner!"
I was made by some nice and skilled boat builders from the BBG Bootsbau Berlin GmbH.  In former times, the shipyard was a publicly owned company of the German Democratic Republic and built racing boats used across all countries of the eastern bloc. Some of you maybe remember my ancestors: grey boats with a flexible shell out of fibre reinforced plastic and a wooden internal structure. Nowadays, the BBG is an experienced, but still pretty innovative shipyard, although obviously quite unknown outside Germany.

My direct predecessor, Beutelteufel ("Tasmanian Devil", named after the small, black and agressive animal whose ears become red when it is excited), was donated to Judith's rowing club by one of the owners of the shipyard, Renko Schmid, in 2012. In that year, she had qualified for the second time for the under-23 world championships in an 21-year old Empacher, which was by then the best boat the small club had in its hangar for her.

Last year, I came to replace Beutelteufel, who is now back in Berlin racing with a junior rower.

As the commentators on the European championships have noticed, I am very short - only 6,85m from bow to stern. That's the reason why, just as my rower sometimes wears high heels to be at eye level with the guys, I have a stick which can be attached to my stern, so that my bow ball can be aligned with all the Empachers and Filippis without the need to put an orangutan onto the starting bridge to hold me.

Due to my short length, I am quite a communicative training partner. As soon as my rower is sitting unstable, or has a bad timing on the turning points, I start to bounce up and down uncomfortably. Judith says that just from that feedback, and from the sound of the water underneath my keel, she gets a good idea about her technique and speed.

Another point my rower definitely appreciates about me is that, due to my high saxboard and wave breaker, I keep her bottom dry up to wind speed 6 (which is not so uncommon in the port of Hamburg).

Dear commentators, I hope you can copy this for your homework... see you in Varese!

Beutelteufel in the boat hangar.