17-01-2009
Some images from the Caribbean
A lot of people have asked me to post some pictures from the Caribbean. I'll start with a small video taken when I took Marcus and Morten, two friendly Swedes I met in a bar in Le Marin, for a little cruise on my boat. This is the first swim I took in the Caribbean after sailing across the Atlantic.
Next are a few pictures from Le Marin.
Here are some pictures from Mustique, my favorite island so far. The first image taken as I'm anchored right outside Basil's Bar, the other ones from a walk I had around the island.
When people think of the Caribbean, Tobago Keys are what many visualize
St. Pierre on the north tip of Martinique is another place I really liked.
I've noticed that when I'm on charters I don't really take any pictures. I guess it's because I'm working and I let the charter guests take all the pictures. This is something I definitely need to work on.
When Lauren was here I got to celebrate Christmas, properly which was awesome ... A story my face tells =)
16-01-2009
Another Day in Paradise
I’m currently anchored in Prince Rupert Bay in Dominica. I would go ashore and explore the rainforest if it wasn’t for the fact that it’s pouring down. I know it’s a bit ironic, but I’m not talking about some light drizzle, it is bucketing down outside. So instead I’m catching up on my emails on the boat having forked out $10 to get connected to the HotHotHot network. All is good.
I arrived here in the afternoon yesterday from St. Pierre on the North tip of Martinique after my first proper open-ocean solo sail with this boat. The sail was a bit of a disaster, I set sail with a very conservative reefed main and double reefed genoa only to be met by big waves and wind that was bordering too strong. I had to turn my rudder all the way to port to counter the wind, so I knew I was over-canvassed (though according to the manual that came with the boat I was not). I pulled in the genoa and put the bows into the wind and waves. The autopilot gave me grief, so I had to turn it off and had to dash down to steer manually every 15 seconds. The waves were pretty big and for the first time in my life on this boat I was actually afraid. The mainsail ripped as I was lowering it, hugely frustrating, since this was the first time I was using it since I got it repaired in Le Marin. After a lot of cursing, sweating, getting drenched by sea-water and holding on for dear life I managed to secure the sail and turn towards my course. Needless to say I was depressed about the sail, but I chose to focus on good things: The genoa still works and the autopilot decided to work again, so I was back in business, motorsailing doing between 5 - 7 knots. The waves were really big and by far the biggest I’ve ever sailed in. I tried to take pictures, but they look puny on film, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I got drenched sitting in the cockpit, so that says something to the people that have been onboard.
Once I got to the lee side of Dominica the waves vanished, but the wind didn’t, so I continued in a much more leisurely fashion. While making my way I spotted a whale waving its tail towards me and also a marlin raced out of the water in hot pursuit of some prey. Added to this, I saw some stunning rainbows, so though the sail started bad, the ending was nice. As I was making my way into Prince Rupert Bay I passed Wind Surf, one of the old Windstar cruise ships.
I was planning to sail for Antigua at 2pm, allowing 16 hours to cover the 95nm to Antigua, but I’ve decided to hit the sack early and get up at 3am and set sail then instead. The wind will be more favorable and it will be nice to get to Antigua just before it gets dark, so that I can enjoy a good night’s sleep without having to do a proper night-sail.
11-12-2008
Crossing the Atlantic
(More pictures and video will soon be posted)
Crossing the Atlantic in a sailboat truly is an adventure of a lifetime. It’s one of those things many people speak off, some people dream off and a very few people do. When I left Norway on Sept. 22nd I had no idea if I would find people that would sail with me even to Gran Canaria, going across the Atlantic seemed like a distant, surreal, dream. As I worked my way southwards from Norway, things slowly fell into place. By the skin of my teeth I managed to find crew for every leg of the journey and when I got to Gran Canaria I actually had a long list of people that wanted to come with me. I was in the dream position of hand picking who I wanted to come across with me. I said no to six people and yes to four. The four people were: Knut, Trond, Arvid and Kaja. You never know how things will work when you put 5 relative strangers in a confined space for weeks on end, so I was a bit nervous, but felt confident that it would work out.
We decided to set sail on November 20th, 3 days before the ARC regatta. 225 boats sail with the ARC regatta, so leaving a few days before them was a great way to have their security network around us …. Without paying for it. We got the boat fueled, loaded with provisions and ready to rock by 7pm on the 19th. Then we went and had a good farewell dinner at our favorite local restaurant, before we retired for the evening. At 05:30 am on the 20th I woke the others and by 06:00 am we had cast off and were on our way. The forecast looked good, but when you have 16 – 18 days at sea ahead of you, you only know what the weather promises for the next few days and not the entire trip. We had a friend of mine Morten Wichstrøm, who also does my charter bookings, following our every nautical mile from his home in Oslo, where he sent us a continuous stream of weather updates and news. The trip certainly wouldn’t have been the same without his assistance.
From the get-go we were plagued with very little wind. It quickly became apparent that our projected 16 – 18 day crossing would probably take longer … much longer. The tough thing was we had no real clue exactly how much longer, because in a worst case scenario it could take us up to 4 weeks. Though my boat is fast, I still need wind to sail. Without joking I can say that for the whole trip we had between 8 – 11 knots of true wind hitting us almost directly from behind most of the time. We were lucky to hit some areas of low pressure that really helped us out towards the end. We saw winds from 0.1 knot of true wind, to an absolute maximum of 24 knots when we narrowly avoided a squall. Anyone that sails will recognize that we had very little wind. This is also a reason why this years ARC regatta is one of the slowest in history and they have seen many boats abort the trip across, because they had so little wind that the trip would take them too long and they would run out of food and water. They opted instead to head back to Gran Canaria, or to Cape Verde and wait for more promising wind.
We surveyed our stores and felt confident that we had enough food for 3 to 4 weeks. We had very little canned food or long-term food, focusing instead on fresh fruit and vegetables and filling my freezer with chicken and meat that we thawed before each dinner. This ensured that we had great produce that Knut and Kaja used to drum up awesome meals with. It also meant that we were very dependent on the freezer. Had it gone belly up … well … let’s just say that next time I’ll make sure that I have more control over the shopping list, so that we would have been more non-perishables onboard.
Another concern was our fresh water supply. On the very first night we lost about 100 liters from the port water tank, probably because a faucet was left open. This meant that our water supply was effectively halved. Though I have a water maker it has given me some grief, so I didn’t want to rely on it. Instead we went into water rationing mode. I think any camel would have been impressed by our efforts. We used salt water for showers, cleaning dishes, when cooking pasta and rice and only used fresh water when we really needed to. We had brought over a 100 bottles of 1.5 liters of drinking water, so that came in addition. It is after all tough to sustain your body on salt water. Our efforts paid off and we didn’t need to start the water maker (except to test it … and lo and behold it didn’t work), we even had about 30 liters to spare when we came to St. Lucia. You might wonder if it was a tough to be in this kind of mode, but it really wasn’t, once we got used to it, it became natural and even taking salt water showers was no hassle.
Our last area of concern was electrics. Running a fridge, freezer, autopilot, navigational instruments, running lights, normal lights, etc. is a huge drain on the batteries. It quickly became apparent that my poor solar panels wouldn’t be able to keep us replenished and with so little wind my wind generator was of incredible little help. Now it was time to make any Scotsman jealous at how much we could save. We basically turned off everything except for the fridge, freezer and chart plotter. Yes, you read correct, we turned off the autopilot. We are without a question one of the very few boats that hand-steered the entire way across the Atlantic. This meant that night and day, someone was on the wheel steering us across. As a side note, because we were 5 people onboard it wasn’t a huge strain and also meant that we always had someone looking forward, which sad to say is not the case on all boats. At night we naturally turned on the tri-color, but besides that and the VHF we used no extra power. As another side note I was appalled to see how few other boats had their VHF’s on. I hailed 5 sailboats during the crossing and no one responded. We also saw a number of sailboats that didn’t use their running lights at night, so I was sad to see the level of poor seamanship. I’m sure if they ever get into an emergency they will be quick to turn on their VHF’s to scream for help, but other than that they kept them off. With our supreme level of frugality we still had to run the engines for 5 hours every day to recharge. On days with little to no wind, these 5 hours gave us some momentum forward, but all in all I had a balancing act between how much electricity we needed to use on one side against how much fuel we had to run the engines on the other. It was a tough equation, especially when we had very little wind and would love to motor sail to put some distance in our log.
Though it might seem harsh that we needed to conserve both water and electricity and hand-steer on top of that, I think it worked out well. No one complained and everyone pulled their share of the load. At the end we had a much more true sailing experience, closer to how it was in the old days. With the exception of the freezer of course.
When talking about the freezer I can’t begin to the great cuisine we enjoyed onboard because of it. We bought a lot of chicken, minced meat and bacon that we broke down into daily packets and froze. This meant we only thawed what we needed. For the first week at sea, Kaja dished up some great salads stretching our fresh vegetables for as long as they would last without spoiling. We had apples for basically 2/3 of the way and we ran out of oranges 2 days before St. Lucia, so there were few cases of scurvy onboard. To give you an indicator of the meals we had, listen to some of my favorite: Chili con carne, shepherd’s pie, tex mex, Indian chicken curry, chicken onion soup, taco’s and fajitas, bangers & mash, Pasta Bolognese, pizza and burgers. All of the meals were lovingly prepared by Knut and/or Kaja and it was something everyone looked forward to. It felt like we were having a Sunday dinner every day.
We ate all our dinners together, but left the rest of the meals up to each person. Due to our shifts we never really had a fixed time of day to eat breakfast and lunch, so people ate when they were hungry. The first week we had good bread, then we moved into the long-life bread and lastly we moved over to the Swedisk knekkebrød. We had a large variety of spreads, cheese, meats and so forth, but as time passed our selections decreased, but we never really ran our of anything. On top of that we had a variety of muesli onboard and when topped off with ice cold long-life milk it was a pleasure to eat. On top of this we had a variety of snacks that we also polished off on the way. In short we had a great variety of food and I think it is why spirits were high on the entire trip. A well fed crew is a happy crew.
I mentioned that we did shifts and it worked out the following way: Each person did one 4-hour nightshift and one 6-hour dayshift. Then every 5 days each person did 2 nighshifts and got the whole day off. It worked out well. Because then people could look forward to a day off every 5 days. At all times, two people were on watch. The shifts ran from 18:00 – 22:00, 22:00 – 02:00, 02:00 – 06:00, 06:00 – noon, noon – 18:00. In the beginning I also did a slight shift, so that one shift started 2 hours later, so that you would stand watch with two people instead of just one. That worked well up until the two least experienced people, Kaja and Arvid, were on watch together on the one shift we had the most wind. The result was that we had the one sailbreakage on the whole trip: The old gennaker split and was firmly broken. After that incident I shifted the watches around a bit, so that the inexperienced would never be together on shift. I also changed them, so that two people went on watch at the same time and stayed together the whole shift. The change proved successful and we had no more accidents after that.
Besides the mentioned gennaker, we had few other problems. The spinnaker halyards was a constant source of chafe and worry. I gaffa taped the area that comes out of the mast, right where the gennaker is attached. The forces at play there really tore into it and as the pictures below shows, I need to take a closer look, because things like that shouldn’t happen after only 10 hours of being under tension. I need to get my ass up into the mast to check what’s going on. The brand new foresail also has some issues, because I think the sailmaker screwed up on the measurements closest to the furler. The reason I say this is because from the looks of it, the sail should go about 20cm higher to be in the right spot … well, it doesn't, so I’ll need to hoist it a bit and secure it down with rope. The whole ordeal of hoisting and lowering the foresail would be a lot easier, if it wasn’t connected to a wire, making raising and lowering it a lot more time consuming than it could have been. It also ensures that it’s something I can’t do by myself, but need assistance. Of course the sail itself is beautiful and on the furler it is very easy to use, but I need to get it positioned perfectly on the forestay for it to be perfect. Even though we had ridiculously little wind, we did have days when I feel like the wind generator (Seabreeze) should have generated electricity, but it didn’t. I really feel like it’s been a struggle to get the thing to give me anything remotely in the vicinity of what it promised. One big blow is that both my trampolines are basically falling apart. Gideon said they would be good for another 2 – 3 years, but from the looks of it they’ll only last a few more months, maybe less, now that I’m here in the Caribbean and they’ll see a lot of use. Another blow was that the port side bilge pumps stopped working again. This greatly irritates me, because I’ve spent so much time on them and Gideon even had an electrician come and rewire them in Amsterdam, but it seems to be to no avail. I had to manually bail out over 200 litres of salt water from the bilge during the crossing. Irritating to say the least! I also need to find out where the water is coming in, but I’m not too concerned, because it only happens in rough seas, so I think it’s through one or some of the through-hull fittings above the waterline. It’s also clear to me that both forward hatches leak not only in rough seas, but also when it rains. It’s also clear that it’s not from the seal, but I hope it’s not structural. I’ll need to spend more time on them in the weeks to come. Another disappointment was the solar fans I installed in Amsterdam. I installed 6 and already 3 of them have stopped working. In 50% breakage in 5 months is not a good track record. They basically just pack in and stop working, so I need to jump on the warranty band wagon and get them replaced. Of other pressing concerns I also need to drill two holes in the anchor roller, so that I can move the roller back a few cm. This will stop the anchor from jamming, a problem that becomes evident anytime I anchor.
Now that the temperature is getting warmer and warmer and the sun’s rays are relentless it’s become very apparent that my dodgy Bimini will need to be replaced. I’d like to replace it with a hard top, so hopefully I can scrape together the funds for that. On top of this it is of course the repair that I need to du to the pulpit I broke in Ijmuiden. I’m a bit puzzled at how the stanchions are fastened to the deck, because they seem only to be secured with a screw and no backing plate, maybe not even a washer, what’s worse is that they are in the actual deck molding, so I can’t get to the screws from underneath to strengthen them. Hopefully the mooring cleats are done properly, so that I don’t have to worry about their strength. It’s definitely something I need to talk to Gideon about.
Besides these things I have a nice little list of things I need to do and improve, but hey, that’s the way it always is. The key thing though is that I still think the FastCat is the supreme boat and I’m deeply satisfied with her. I wouldn’t exchange her for anything, especially once I get through with the repairs and improvements I need to do.
I hinted earlier at the poor wind we had and it’s true. In the end it took 21 days and 3 hours from when we cast off in Gran Canaria to when we were tied up in St. Lucia. Considering that we sailed close to 3000 nautical miles, this means an average speed of almost 6 knots, which is respectable for a normal boat, but I was expecting a much faster time. I can’t blame anything or anyone, but the wind. It certainly wasn’t the boat’s fault, because even with an inkling of wind we were moving graciously through the waves. In fact everyone onboard was amazed at how the boat moved. No matter the waves, we were safe and when the wind did pick up (on those rare occasions) the boat loved it. It’s also easy to look at the wind and think: 11 knots of wind. Well, they should do 7 – 10 knots then. Maybe if I got it at a different angle, but when it’s coming from straight behind it’s tough to get a lot of power out of it when you don’t have a huge spinnaker. My sailrobe is basically the main and genoa and two 135sqm and one 120 sqm gennaker. On the days we really moved, we had around 14 – 16 knots of true wind. Then it was a joy to sail and we flew along doing around 8 knots. The problem and what really dragged the average down was the bad days when we hardly any wind to work with. Days with daily averages of 4 knots or less are a killer. We didn’t have too many of them, but those we had meant that we needed to sail so incredibly much faster to lift the average back up again. Our worst day by far was day 14 when we averaged 91 nm in 24 hours. That’s 3.7 knots as an average. We were dying onboard. Then it looked like the trip could take almost 4 weeks and we felt a bit demotivated. Around that time the time-to-go indicator seemed to be stuck on 10 days. It was certainly our big joke onboard that we’ll be there in 10 days. Things got better and towards the end we were able to average between 170 - 185 nm in 24 hours, which we were very happy with since the winds never exceeded 18 knots.
Though we were plagued with little wind, the weather was gorgeous for the whole trip. I think we only had 2 or three days with rain, and even then it wasn’t continuous. We were able to lounge around and enjoy the sun and the great food. I finished 3 solid books: The Birds of Prey trilogy by Wilbur Smith. It felt exhilarating to read about pirates and privateers off the coast of Africa, when that’s where we were sailing. Everyone else also finished a large number of books, so it was a well read crew that walked ashore. The favorite book of the trip was Collective Suicide by Arto Paasilinna a book everyone read and loved. On one of the particular dead days in the middle of the Atlantic, we dove into the ocean and enjoyed a leisurely swim… and a bit of action.
All in all, the trip across was amazing. It was one of the things I dreaded the most when I left Norway, but it turned out to be the best parts of the journey. It is certainly something that will stay with me forever.
16-11-2008
Gran Canaria her we come
After 2 days in Oeiras we were ready to take off. The stay had been short, but sweet. It had climaxed in our epic “Capture the Flag” and we were definitely ready to feel the wind grab a hold off the sails again.
We set sail in the afternoon when the wind was most favorable. It was nice to finally have the forecast kick in. We motored for less than 30 minutes, before we shut off the engines and hoisted the sails. The awesome thing was that we didn’t need to power up the engines again for propulsion before we got to Gran Canaria.
Trond and I decided that we would sail conservatively, so that we wouldn’t rip any sails or have any other mishaps. This really paid off, because nothing broke on the way. The only downside was that we perhaps didn’t push the boat as hard as we could.
The trip was a true joy. The first three days passed in normal fashion, where we basically sustained ourselves on bread, apples and biscuits, but late on day 3 Trond cooked up a storm with a very tasty pesto chicken pasta. After that it was no turning back. We enjoyed all the food we had brought and could finally feel our bodies properly adjusted to the motion of the ocean.
The wind was surprisingly a bit challenging, because we got it straight from behind. Add in modest sized waves and both we and Otto (the autopilot) had to get a bit creative. The main sail and genoa saw the most amount of work, because the waves were a bit too big to fly the gennaker safely. The wind was also a tad strong, so it was bordering on when we would take the gennaker down had we been flying it, but we still let it feel the air for a few hours when the wind was not as aggressive. In essence we decided not to fly the gennaker if the apparent wind was bordering 15 knots. When we were in the vicinity of 15 knots of apparent wind, we normally saw from 23 – 28 knots of true wind, which could have been a pain if something had gone wrong. During the last 24 hours we had decent sized waves, so we opted to drop the main and just use the genoa. It worked like a charm and let us sail doing 6 – 8 knots in a very relaxed way. When we got to Gran Canaria the wind died, so for the last few hours we had to fire up Judas to get us to Porto de Mogan. I would have liked to have gone to Las Palmas, but with the 250+ boats sailing in and around the ARC staying there now, it was better to head further south to a place we could chill and be comfortable.
All that remains now is to wait for the crew members that will sail across the Atlantic with me … and get the boat ready … oh and naturally enjoy some MUCH NEEDED summer and sunshine …
08-11-2008
Povoa de Varzim to Gran ... Peniche I mean
I was planning to set sail as soon as my latest crew member Trond came down from Norway. Unfortunately the winds wanted it otherwise, so we ended up spending two extra days in Povoa before we finally cast off. The winds were going with us, but at strengths of 2 – 4 knots, we had to hoist the iron topsail to make any meaningful progress. We quickly calculated that we’d be using a lot of fuel, just getting down to where there wind was forecast, so instead of shooting straight for that, we aimed at Peniche (130nm south of Povoa on the Portugese coast), so that we could top off our tanks and download a new grib file (A grib file is a weather file, that certain programs allow to download. They are great for seeing when and where winds will blow.)
The trip down was very uneventful, except for a school of dolphins that came and played with us a few times. Magical animals that you felt were observing you, just as much as you were observing them. We came into the harbor in Peniche fully intent on staying an hour and then shooting off again. Alas that proved to be too ambitious. First of all we couldn’t get diesel for another hour and any internet place opened 2 hours later. These people start work late, have a few hours of siesta in the middle of the day and even leave early … What a great life!
We did a break-neck diesel filling at a tiny pier with a shallow right in front of it. Then we downloaded the grib file and to our disappointment it promised no wind at all. So instead of sailing on, we’ll stay here till tomorrow, then we’ll hopefully sail, if not motor down to Ceicos, to wait till Tuesday when real wind will finally kick in …. Unless the forecast changes … again.
22-10-2008
The Bay of Biscay
We stayed in Falmouth for a total of 4 days. It did however feel like a lot longer. Not because it was a boring place, but because we accomplished so much. We made a number of new friends, tried out most of the nearby (and some of the not-so-nearby) pubs, dug into the hearty local cuisine, downed more ale than we both care to admit and even had space for a cider or two (or possibly three). They stay was a success and re-charged our batteries and made us hungry for new sailing adventures. We were ready to set sail across the dreaded Bay of Biscay.
The Bay is an undertaking not to be underestimated at the best of times, so we prepared properly. We got our food shopping done, got the boat in tip top shape and were mentally prepared for hardship. The forecast indicated that the wind would be on the light side, but we decided to err on the side of caution, so we took nothing for granted. In the first 24 hours we saw good winds that helped push us away from the UK and towards France. The trajectory wasn’t perfect, but it kept us moving. Right as we were passing France, the wind died down and we had to motor for almost 24 hours, before we could again hoist the sails and enjoy some splendid sailing. The Bay gave us more wind and higher waves than what had been forecast, but both we and the boat were comfortable. The whole trip across was going remarkably well, when we got a twist in the gennaker and it split with a heart wrenching tear. We got it down and into the bag. We wanted to hoist the main, but it was too windy to get up against the wind, so we turned and motored towards Portugal. At this point in time the waves were between 4 – 5 meters, so it was a tad uncomfortable to try to go against the seas, but when we were sailing towards Portugal, we got them hitting our rear and then everything was excellent. We were surfing down waves and enjoying life. As soon as we rounded the tip, the wind completely died and the waves vanished with it. It didn’t take long before a group of dolphins came up and started playing around us. They never cease to amaze me and this was no different, we were spellbound the entire time they were around us.
They left shortly before sunset, which was when we were getting very close to our destination: Povoa de Varzim. We had intended to go farther, but when I heard that this place was the cheapest and also one of the best marinas in Portugal, I set my course straight for it. We tided up just as the sky darkened and night fell upon us. Our timing was perfect and I’m very happy that we got there before dark. An night approach to a new harbor is no fun.
Povoa de Varzim was everything we were promised and more. It is a perfect place to stop and get properly ready for the sail to Gran Canaria. I took stock of our trip from Falmouth. We had sailed around 580nm. To accomplish this we had spent a total of 86.5 hours. This gave us an average speed of 6.7 knots. I have to say that I was surprised, because it felt like we were going faster.
The best news is that now we’ve braved some of the toughest areas of the trip to the Caribbean. Though I don’t expect an easy time after this, it feels good to move forward with confidence after having sailed through the English Channel and crossed both the North Sea and the Bay of Biscay. Doing this in summer, can be hard … doing it in late fall like we did …. Not recommendable … This of course just adds spice to the tale.
11-10-2008
Going to Cherbourg … or wait a minute!
We woke up early and maneuvered alongside the fuelingship. The night alongside the fuel barge had been short and uneventful. With freshly topped off tanks and 100 liters in jerry cans, we hurried into the marina in IJmuiden to do the last few things. The last few things included picking up the sails Patrick (the sailmaker) had fixed, hoisting the new genoa and finishing off the bilge pump repair. We topped hoisting the new genoa off by pulling the starboard pulpit out of the deck. I’ve never been closer to crying, but it worked out. My friend Rob showed up and did some emergency repairs that will allow me to sail until I decide to get it fixed, probably in the Caribbean. Though it was a shock and it looked worse than it was, it was still a big blow. With the pulpit stored safely in the dinghy and the holes sika’d shut, we cast off. Patrick waved us off and we set a south-westerly course straight for Cherbourg.
As is normal, we had basically bought the wrong things to eat, because as soon as we were on our way, our appetites vanished and we focused on two things: standing watch and sleeping. Basically if you weren’t doing one, you were doing the other. We did 3-hour shifts and though we had lots of tasty nibblies, speaking for myself, getting food down was like a second job. It’s not that it was particularly rough, but I just wasn’t hungry. I did drink a lot of water though, so the body seemed happy.
What was clear was that we were making very good progress and when we were looking at the map and the wind indicator 2 days later, it was clear to us that it would make much more sense to continue for another day and go straight to Falmouth on the south western extremity of England. We spent about 10 seconds discussing it, before we traded French cuisine and red wine for pub grub and ales. What a great choice! Some really good friends of us studied in Falmouth, so we had a complete run-down of where to go and what to do before we hit the harbor. This looked very promising.
Of course before we could even think of entering Falmouth we had to cross one of the busiest shipping lanes in the World: The English Channel. I’d like to say that it was stressful and scary, but we followed the rules and made a straight line across. This minimized the danger and made crossing the high-traffic separation zones a speedy affair.
When we arrived in Falmouth we entered on cue as the sun was supposed to rise. It didn’t and when I was thinking the World was going to Hell, I realized that we had forgot to set our clocks one hour back. This ensured that we were sailing around Falmouth in the pre-twilight. We did OK and found a perfect spot in the guest harbor, happily aided by Meme a friendly South African lady who popped up as we were about to tie up. She gave us all the info we needed to ensure a happy stay in the guest harbor.
The trip had taken us 62.5 hours. In that time we covered 440nm miles. This gave us an average speed of just above 7 knots for the entire trip. Not amazing, but pretty damned good. We were certainly happy and ready to enjoy Falmouth.
09-10-2008
Amsterdamming
Having arrived safely in Amsterdam, Lauren and I set out to enjoy ourselves in town. Though I had a long list of things I wanted to do with the boat, Lauren only had a few days before she had to return home to the US, so I took the time “off” to hang out and have fun. Taking time “off” is a strange concept when I in truth don’t really have any work to do, so I’m technically speaking always “off”. Any boatowner will however tell you that this is not the case. When you have a boat, you’re never unemployed and you’ll never run out of things to do, fix or improve.
What was good, was that we were able to move the boat from the marina in IJmuiden, which lies an hour on the bus outside of Amsterdam, into the center of Amsterdam. Going through the locks was a bit of nerve-wrecking, since we had no idea what to expect … or what to do, but it worked out. Staying in Amsterdam with the boat gave us a great starting point to explore the town… and explore we did. Her last days flew by and before I knew it, I was driving her to the airport in the Worlds smallest car. It was amazing that we were able to fit all her luggage inside. Though the Smart car is tiny and not particular fast, I still managed to get two speeding tickets on the way. Damned speeding cameras.
With Lauren on the way home, I started working on the boat. I had a long list of things that needed to be done, first on the list was getting the boat lifted out of the water. This was done with a mobile crane, which weighed my boat in at 10tons. Again I was more than a little nervous, because the crane seemed to puny and my boat so big, but in the end we encountered no problems.
With the boat firmly on land, I was just about to get cracking when Knut walked around the corner. He was joining me for the next three weeks and to be honest I was very happy to see him. Not only because it meant I had someone there to help me with the work, but also because the boat became very empty when Lauren left.
Knut and I went to work and hammered away at my do-list, which included: raising the anti-fouling by 10 cm (this so that I would be prepared for the heavier loads I’ll no doubt carry in the future), we swapped the old 15m anchor chain and 45 meters of weighted line, with 100m of stainless steel chain. We also marked the chain every 5 meters, so that it’s easy to count how much chain has been dropped out. At the end we took off the 23kg CQR anchor and put on a brand spanking new 33kg Rocna anchor. With the brand new bridle, I’ll be ready to anchor anywhere around the globe. Finally I’m confident that I have a good anchoring system. Now the rest is up to me.
I also cleaned the propellers properly, removing a ton of chalk and growth from them. We did the same on the whole bottom. Let me just say that cleaning the bottom hull of a boat is a time consuming endeavor. I finally changed the non-operational bilge pumps, which was a relief after 2 months of disappointments. In short, we kept ourselves very busy. Having said that we enjoyed some fine meals in Amsterdam and onboard and even received a very nice visit from Edvard and some classmates of his.
When we were finally back on the water, we topped off our water tanks and re-pulled the snapped halyard, before we shot away from Amsterdam and headed back out towards the sea. We had arranged to pick up fuel in the morning, before we would cast off for Cherbourg. Though I had a great time in Amsterdam I was VERY ready to put it behind me and get moving south. The longer I waited the worse the weather would get and my chances of getting a good weather window would lessen. It was in high spirits we tied up along the fuel barge, to spend the night there, so that we could get off early the next day.
25-09-2008
Second attempt at IJmuiden
We spent a good weekend in Egersund reading, eating good food and relaxing, while we waited for good northerly winds, scheduled to arrive on Monday. We did get a bit of bad news, because Frode had to return to work, so it would only be Lauren and I that would make the passage down to Amsterdam. Lauren was a bit apprehensive about it, because the only sailing experience she had was from the first attempt at getting to Ijmuiden, which had been no fun at all. In the end she agreed and we changed her ticket, so that she we wouldn’t run into time constraints. She was supposed to fly back to Maryland on Thursday, which could have been tough if no wind materialized or if we had another mishap. She moved her flight to the following Monday, which would should be enough.
The Monday started exactly like the one a week earlier had: We went grocery shopping, topped off the diesel tanks and motored out to sea in search of wind. I was keeping my fingers crossed that September 22nd would be the date I actually managed to set sail from Norway. The date is actually very special to me, because it was the birthday of my grandmother Ingrid, the person I was closest to when growing up.
We left Egersund at 10:30am and met a very docile North Sea. Tiny waves and no wind. It continued in that fashion till about 7pm, when I decided to put up the gennaker to see if we could utilize the almost non-existent wind you could feel on deck. With the sail up and engines off, we were doing between 3.5 – 5 knots in 4 - 7 knots of wind. We weren’t flying, but we were moving and any movement without engines is welcoming. The sun set at 7:30pm and though the night the wind and waves gradually grew bigger. I didn’t want Lauren to be outside at night, because a boat can be tough to handle on your own in daylight if you’re new to sailing and leaving it in her hands at night wouldn’t have been fair, so I had a LONG nightshift. The wind and waves were working with us this time, so we were able to point directly at IJmuiden. Progress was good, the wind peaked at around 15 knots and we were sailing at around 10 knots. I opted not to use the mainsail, because I lack enough experience with the boat, to confidently handle the main and and gennaker efficiently. Sailing wouldn’t have been a problem, but reefing or taking down one or both at the same time, by myself, could have been tough. Soon I’ll have that confidence, but not right now.
I was very happy that I only had one sail up at 11:50am the next day, when a loud whip-like crack rang through the air. I looked forward and saw my brand new gennaker slowly disappear away from the boat to lay down perfectly in the North Sea. The halyard had snapped. The sock started sinking and it looked like it would take the sail with it. I let go of one of the sheets and managed to winch the sail in with the remaining sheet, and then pull it onboard once I got a hold of some fabric. All in all I was lucky and only got a small tear in the gennaker and an even smaller one in the sock. I think the holes happened when I pulled them onboard, but if the choice was between loosing them and making a small hole, I'd make a hole any day.
My spirit sank a little, because my percentage now is 100%. On every longer passage a sail has broken. The big gennaker ripped with capital R when I was sailing to Norway, the jib on the first attempt to get to IJmuiden and now the second gennaker on the second attempt to IJmuiden. I fired up the engines to see what speed I could attain. Doing 2750 rpm I was able to do 7 knots. I was happy with that and set the course for IJmuiden and let Otto take care of the rest.
I haven’t had much luck with my sails. In my … or their defense I have to repeat what the sail maker here in IJmuiden said about them when he went over them before I sailed to Norway. My main and jib are racing sails. They are awesome for that, but they need to be treated like gold. Prior to me buying the boat they had just been hanging on the boat all year round for 3 years, which is kind of like leaving a dog in your car with all the windows closed during the peak of summer. The sails were hurting badly and the sail maker said that they could last one trip or a year or two, but he doubted that they would last longer. So it was in the back of my mind when they tore, but it’s still painful when it happens. The gennaker that went for a swim is brand new and with the exception of the little hole it got now, is in perfect condition and should last me a few years. I do however need to go over my halyards to make sure that this doesn’t happen again. The new jib I’m getting is in Dacron and to supplement my other older gennaker that ripped on the way to Norway, I’m buying a brand new one in the same size. The older sails I’m planning to repair and have as back-ups while I use the new ones as my working horses. It hurts to spend so much on sails, when I have so little money to spare right now. Still, I can’t let a broken sail or two (or three) bring me down too far, I need to roll with it. Lauren says that I’m good at making lemonade out of lemons and this has been a good confirmation of that.
To get back to the trip to IJmuiden: After I started the engines we motored straight down to the Netherlands, aided by waves, wind and current. I was actually surprised at how swiftly it went. Otto managed beautifully the whole time, so we spent most of the time inside, keeping watch from there. It’s great that we have full visibility from inside in all directions. It made the passage enjoyable, because we could chill out and relax while the nautical miles clicked by. We even watched Return of the Jedi while we were motoring along the Dutch coast. At 11:30pm, exactly 61 hours after setting sail from Egersund I jumped ashore on the dock in Seaport Marina IJmuiden and tied us up. We had traveled 365 nm and our average speed was 6 knots. I was unhappy about only sailing for 16.5 hours and motoring the rest, but we got here in high spirits and aside from the hole in the gennaker and the torn halyard there’s little to complain about. Now I’m docked in position: N 52°27.592 E004°33.708. The plan is to spend 1 week in IJmuiden. I’m putting on a new anchor (a Rocna 33), new anchor chain and a new bridle. I'll also be fixing the broken halyard, the bilge pumps, along with some other stuff that needs to be done. Lastly I’m going to haul the boat out of water to give her a proper scrub underneath, change the zinc anodes and find out how much she really weights (this has been a big discussion on a forum online). I have my work cut out for me, but first I’m going to enjoy today and tomorrow in Amsterdam, because it’s something I didn’t really do the last time I was here. It is after all much more fun to party with someone, than go at it alone.
17-09-2008
First attempt at IJmuiden
Monday September 15th was slated to be the start of the circumnavigation. I was joined by Frode Bergsvik, who also crewed on the trip for Amsterdam to Norway; in addition Lauren Hutchinson was making a first time appearance on a catamaran. Our departure day went pretty much as planned. We got up in the morning, did grocery shopping, topped off the diesel tanks and finally at 2pm motored away from Stavanger in search of wind that would bring us to the Netherlands.
The forecast promised easterly winds, which would work very well for us. As is often the case the forecast was wrong. We got southerly winds. The strength was as forecasted, but the wind was blowing directly from where we wanted to go. This meant sailing as close hauled as possible. Progress was hard won, because we had waves, wind and current against us. We fired up an engine to assist and then managed to creep the speed up to somewhere between 3 – 5 knots. It wasn’t pleasant, because the sea was building and the North Sea is no fun to be with increasing waves. Otto the autopilot was my man and he worked overtime to keep us on course. In the end it proved too big a challenge for him and he packed in and shut down. With the waves directly against us, we were hardly making any progress. We tried to get turn Otto on, but a fuse had blown and we couldn’t find out where the fuse was located. Trust me when I say that it’s no fun to search behind cupboards, bulkheads and every odd end of the boat looking for a small box where the fuse is located. We weren’t even entirely sure if it was a blown fuse, but hoped that it wouldn’t be anything more serious. In this commotion I managed to sacrifice my lunch and dinner to Poseidon and wasn’t feeling entirely on top of things. We made the decision to head back to land, to sort things out. Lauren and Frode hit the sack while I had the night watch. We headed for the closest port which turned out to be Egersund, about an hour south of Stavanger by car. The waves were knocking us around quite a bit, so I decided to furl the jib. It had received a lot of beating when Otto was having difficulty steering prior to giving up, so letting it rest a bit would probably be a good thing, right? … Wrong!
From where we turned, it took us approximately 10 hours to get to Egersund. We arrived tired, but in good spirits. We tied up next to the police station and went to work on Otto. It took exactly 1 minute after I had spoken to Gideon about the location of the box to get Otto back again. I ran a diagnostics test and everything was good, so we were basically all set to go. That’s when I took a look at the jib. It was ripped. When I say ripped I mean RIPPED: From top to bottom, pretty much directly along the part that a sail maker in Ijmuiden had strengthened it. It was disheartening. The sail maker that had strengthened it had told me that the sail was old and that it could break the first time I used it, or it could last a year or two, so it wasn’t a huge surprise. I talked to Gideon and we agreed that he would get a new job sewn in South Africa, which he could hopefully bring with him when he returned to Amsterdam in 10 days. My biggest problem was that it would be very tough to sail to the Netherlands without a jib. After doing a bit of thinking I decided that if we had northerly winds, we could forgo the jib and use the gennaker instead. Northerly winds were forecast in 6 days, so we decided to chill out and wait for proper winds.
6 days gave us plenty of time to get acquainted with Egersund. To my surprise it proved to be a super convenient place to stay with the boat. You only have to pay mooring fees during the summer, so we got to stay for free. On top of that they didn’t charge for water, electricity or internet, so it was a prefect place for us. Another thing I really liked was that there the city is so small, that everything was within walking distance. This proved to be a big boon when we were restocking the boat and fixing the bilge pumps. Oh, yeah … the bilge pumps which I thought I had fixed crapped out again, so we were sailing without any means to get water out of the bilge short of doing it with a bucket. After having spent 2 days in Egersund, we decided to head up to Stavanger, to chill there. We jumped on a train, leaving the boat safely tied up in the middle of Egersund.