The pride of our yachting club is the new offshore racing boat we bought in spring 2005. Formerly known as "Tonnerre", the quite famous racing yacht built in 1997 won his skilled owner the Fastnet Race in 2001.

The hull is completely made of several layers of bidirectional carbon in sandwich construction. The deep drafted keel creates high stability in upwind course. A crew of five is usually required to sail, two handling the foregut, two handling the winches of the main and the helmsman. On deck are two wheels installed to steer with, so that the helmsman is able to steer on both sides of the ship. Illuminated digital displays inform the helmsman constantly of the direction and magnitude of the wind, course over ground, speed in water and various other useful information. 12 people can sleep and eat under deck. The layout of the internal structure was thought out by experienced ship builders, so that there's both room to move around freely and stow away sailing gear and personal accessories. The only disadvantage of the ship in comparison to our old yacht is its retractable keel, which leaves a draught of at least 260cm, thus preventing us to enter some ports like Dover.

My first cruise in October 2005 took me from Southampton to our home port in Breskens, a trip of 250 sea miles, which we made in 25 hours. I assume, that most regular yachts would not even be able to reach our average speed and we were certainly mostly rookies during that passage.

1) Vennbahnweg (two-way 10 - 16 km)
The Vennbahnweg is definitely the most famous track for inline skaters around Aachen, since it is perfect for beginners and leads through a very nice countryside. Unfortunately it also gets boring very fast, when you are a more experienced skater. Starting point is usually somewhere near the crossing of Trierer Strasse and Ringstrasse in Aachen Brand. From there, the Vennbahnweg leads to Kornelimünster, where (after 5km) you will end up at a small restaurant, whose number of customers is usually proportional to the outside temperature. Since summer 2005, road enhancements allow inline skaters to continue the track till Walheim. With this additional stretch, the two-way distance reaches about 16km.

2) Klinikum - Industrieterrein de Beitel (round course about 20 km)
This is a track which I have skated countless times and probably will skate countless more. A good starting point is the car park of the Universitätsklinik Aachen. From there you'll have to go up the Schlangenweg (very steep), turn right to Laurensberg and follow the agricultural, yet completely tarred, streets to the Industrieterrein de Beitel in the Netherlands. From there you can follow the bicycle track (neatly polished tar, which is perfect for racing) near the main road L231 back to Horbach and Richterich and finally Laurensberg. You can find a visual description of the track here, just follow the numbers.

3) Aachen - Maastricht (two-way about 60 km)
This is definitely a one-day tour, even for more experienced skaters. You should start somewhere in the Vaalser Strasse in Aachen. A bicycle track leads from there through Vaals, Lemiers, Nijswiller, Wahlwiller, Gulpen, Termaar and Cadier en Keer to Maastricht. Here you should cross the A2 and find a nice place near the Maas for a break. It is possible to take a bus from there back to Aachen, but of course it is far more appealing to skate back the same distance. A warning though: from Maastricht to Aachen the track ascends most of its way, so be prepared for having sore muscles.

Adams first novel deals with a band of indiviuals, who set out to begin a new life. The enthralling fact, that all characters are rabbits intensifies the exciting and complex plot. But do not think, that Watership Down is a cute story - both heroes and villains are rabbits, who face serious issues of life and death.

Social allegory and political metaphors are constant companions enriching the tale. During their quest to set up a new warren, the protagonists encounter two other rabbit communities, whose members live under a false sense of security. The first one is a prosperous Wellsian utopia whose terrifing downsides reveal themselves gradually. Its members live their daily lives without any freedom or self-determination only to be slaughtered by men. The second is a repressive society with a strong military branch and even a secret police ruled by a self-proclaimed rabbit general, who is so obsessed with possible dangers from all sides that he reduces personal freedom to imprisonment.

In order to populate their own community, the main characters under the guidance of their leader Hazel have to confront the ferocious dictator to help his imprisoned rabbits escape. The plot culminates in an impressing stand against the Generals forces, which not all protagonists will survive.

It is a common misbelief that the Hollywood movie "I, Robot" with Will Smith was based on this book. The producers failed to understand what Asimov's robot stories were really about. Even the movies plot is completely different to the events described in the book, which is actually a collection of loosely connected short stories.

Asimov wrote the book in the 1940s, when an autonomous humanoid robot seemed to be a plausible extrapolation of technological developments. In contrast to the earlier fictious creations like Frankenstein, Asimov goal was to create an artificial being which simply would not be able to turn against its creator. He invented the three laws of robotics, a sound foundation which would made it impossible for a robot to harm a human. The short stories describe several consequences of these laws and how both robots and humans would have to deal with them. In the end, the machine has to struggle between obeying its laws or acting in the best interest of mankind.

The "I" in the title is a hint to Descartes, a warning that an artificial intelligence is bound to develop something similar to the human consciousness. Unfortunately, the movies climax trades in clichés of amok AI's while Asimovs creations ultimately found a way to combine obedience with humanism.

Christopher Boone is a 15-year old autistic boy, living only with his father in a typical english suburb. When he discovers that the neighbours dog has been killed, he understands the situation as a puzzle, an unknown constant in his safe world of known people and known facts. During his desperate quest to find a pattern which will enable him to make sense of the events, he fails to comprehend that solving the riddle might destroy the safety of his own small world entirely.

While witnessing the plot from Christopher's point of view, the reader can apprehend his problems when dealing with other people as well as everyone else's frustrations when dealing with the boy. Haddon description of the the inner workings of Christopher's mind seem extremely plausible. The protagonists world is entirely based on logic and facts. There is neither intuition nor guesswork in his investigation, only rational reasoning. The book is brimming with diagrams and equations, which establish an order in the chaotic world of human emotions and subtlety.

When he is venturing forth from his safe world of familiar people and places, Christopher has to face his fears and both the joy in his achievements as well as the set-backs are overwhelming. In the end, he finds far more answers than he has been looking for.

At first sight, an ordinary story is told about a young man who is repeatedly expelled from a private school and leaves his dormitory to escape from this place of uneasiness. However, J. D. Salinger's only published novel would not be classified as "American literatue" if the plot would just stay at such a level. Instead "The Catcher in the Rye" sheds light on the inside of Holden Caulfield, an extremely alienated and cynical teenager who has shielded himself from the complexities of the outside world by pushing away every friend and adult. Holden can only feel contempt for these people, who seem hypocritical to him. His inability to deal with personal conflicts generates a feeling of undeserved victimization.

During his journey from the dormitory to the place of his parents, Holden often stops and tries to reanimate his life from a happier past by calling old friends or recalling experiences from long ago. Inevitable he is pulling himself deeper into isolation and his desire for independence along with his wishes for a simple, managable live disconnect him further from reality. The only personal connection he is able to make is the one to his little sister. In Holdens simplistic wishful thinking he is responsible for shielding her childhood innocence from the madding society. While wishing, that he will catch her from falling, he fails to realize that he is actually the one who needs to be caught. The book describes his development from depression to the eventual nervous collapse.

A lot of books have been written on the Holocaust and the role of ordinary citizens during the reign of the Third Reich. Haffner traces the roots of nazism back to World War I, when boys like himself grew up with exciting tales about great leaders or military victories and finally ended up with an agonizing defeat. Unlike most other books, he describes the developments between June 1914 and 1933 from a first-person perspective and still does not fail to explain how domestic or foreign affairs and events pave the way for the Nazi movement.

Haffner grows up as a son of a prussian bureaucrat. He receives an outstanding education and has to endure relatively few repercussions from voluntary military forces like the Free Corps. While he does not agree with nazi doctrine he desribes himself as a clear antagonist without the courage of speaking up. Although terrifying events unfold around him, he moves with the tide, even participating in an compulsory indoctrination camp for young lawyers.

Haffner's personal memories lead the reader to a point, where he is questioning himself: What would I have done, if I had been in Haffners shoes? The answer might not be enjoyable.