Estonia „Renting a yacht without a captain is more common among foreigners as for them it is a way to spend their holiday,” Reede says. „They are usually people that have already explored the Mediterranean and are now turning their eyes towards Estonia. They rent a yacht, spend a week or two exploring Estonia and fly back.” Although most such peer to peer boat rental deals have been made already during the winter, it is always worth to give Sailing a call to see if they have a spare yacht to go discovering Estonian waters on your own. And not only Estonian, Reede points out that an interesting archipelago on the coast of Finland is just 40 nautical miles from Tallinn. „Sailing gives you the opportunity for a total time out. Plus a way to move from one place to another,” Reede says, admitting that the number of Estonians who see their yachts as a summer cottage, has grown during the last years. She believes it gives a significant advantage to the holiday. „Otherwise you go to a hotel and spend the whole week in one spot. But with a yacht, you can always just change the location whenever you feel like it.” „I feel that sailing is becoming more popular,” says Leida Lepik, a passionate sailor who tries to take her boat, LYS class Marielle to the sea as often as she can. „Every year more and more people participate in the Moonsund Regatta – the highlight of the sailing season. The LYS yacht class has grown especially fast.” Lepik is right. Last year more than 100 yachts and 700 people participated in the 55th Moonsund
Regatta. The number of Nordic Folkboat yachts was also higher than ever – 12. This meant they could compete in a separate category for the first time. In 2012, the prototype of Nordic Folkboat celebrated its 70th birthday, so this was a great present. Lepik admits this development makes her happy as more sailors mean more boats, which means bigger demand for ports, which means port owners have to renovate their ports in order to sustain the demand. And of course, more sailors means more jolly people in the ports. Lepik's Marielle has found a home at Lennusadam, Sea Plane Harbour, located almost in the centre of Tallinn, right next to the museum. At the moment Marielle is anxiously waiting to get back into the water – her season ended in the beginning of January 2013, and will start again at the end of April. To end a season in January is pretty extraordinary for Estonia, usually sailing season so far up north ends in September-October when the weather gets colder. „But the sea was not frozen, so we thought why not,” Lepik laughs and says that Marielle was sailing almost every week until January. „If you are dressed warm and the wind is not too strong, so the waves are not too bad, it's really nice to sail during winter.” Another extraordinary thing about Marielle's season’s final trip was the two foreign guests, one from Namibia and another from Germany. It was the first time ever to go sailing for them and Lepik assures they were very happy with the experience, despite the winter breeze.
A few years ago Estonian Yachting n
Union (EYU) managed to get support from a private enterprise, Vopak E.O.S., and import a fleet of RS Feva boats that gave an opportunity for kids to test out sailing in teams of two. The Secretary General of the Estonian Yachting Union then said that creating a RS Feva fleet is one of the most influential accomplishments for Estonian sailing. „This boat widens the opportunities to sail for kids. Many of them prefer sailing in pairs because of their personality or physique and also just because it’s more fun. It makes me really happy that Estonian kids can now start sailing in groups of two already at their first training session. They don't have to wait anymore, until they grow into the Olympic 470 or 49er categories”.
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