written by Kjell Eirik Henanger on April 9 of 2024 and read by 951
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Bergen on the west coast of Norway, gateway to the fjords, has suffered from lack of Solings for years. But this is looking to change. The largest and oldest yacht club in Bergen, established 1872, held a combined Soling and Yngling Norwegian championship at their 100-year anniversary back in 1972. And following that there were both Yngling and Soling activity for some years, with a large Yngling Norwegian championship in 1982 amongst others. But from the late eighties this keelboat activity faded. Having grown largely into a harbour focused club for large touring and cruising boats, with a proud excerption for the old and mixed wood/GFRP Knarr class and some dinghy sailing, there is growing understanding that one should have a real racing boat alternative, as the Knarr, beautiful as it is, somehow doesn't attract all, and not younger adults growing out of the dinghy classes. Soling with its heritage, standing, boat availability and pure sailing joy experience is certainly such an alternative, due cost that quickly beats any other great sailing tunned boat to be raced in handicap setup "races". Therefore with the arrival of NOR 122 and NOR 117 in the Bergen area, the World Championship at Hankø and hopefully a continued high activity in the class in Norway, we hope to establish a fleet in the Bergen area, for what is arguably one of the best one design keel boats ever.
NOR 117 Stayer Jr and NOR 122 Fetter Fart<sup>²</sup> are preparing for the Worlds at Hankø, and even though conditions at the west coast sometimes could be harsh in later winter or early spring, we manage a lot of good sessions. This Sunday NOR 117 wisely chose to stay ashore with the 25-30knots steady with gusts in 35-38knots range, but NOR 122 couldn't hold the temptation and went for a session to experience and test the boat at survival conditions. Both boat and crew managed and survived without major issues, though pin pointing some weak points and improvement and optimisation issues, all in all a beneficial session. We'll continue training locally before a tune up training weekend at our Soling friends on the south coast at Grimstad, not far from the past Soling Europeans in 2007 held at Arendal. We look forward to collecting learnings from our more experienced Soling teams in the south and east of Norway.
See you all at Hankø for magnificent summer sailing in the outer Oslo fjord. We just can't wait for!
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