The last act

On the  weekend Amalthea  and I sailed back to the home marina in Holland.  This was the last stage of the whole 1000DH story.

The trip started in Borkum.  There some minor repairs and preparations were made prior to starting.  Another 45cm was cut off the jib halyard and a new shackle was tied on.  The old end was almost worn through.  This is the third time this has been done since leaving Asköy.  This problem in the masttop will have to be dealt with before any other longer trip is made.  A new line was also put onto the wind vane self steering.  At least the old one lasted about 5 years before it got to this state. 

Frayed control line for wind vane

 We left Borkum against both the tide and a 20 knot wind.  It was rough and even going downriver with the current it was very slow going.  The wind and tide versus the river current kicked up a huge chop,  and it took hours to get clear  of Borkum.  A few miles after turning west, away from the river, the water became much calmer.  Once out on the coast the route went almost due west along the coastline until we could enter the Waddenzee between Terschelling and Vlieland.  Along the coast there was mostly uneventful, upwind sailing in about 20 knots of wind,  though at the end the wind died out.  There were few yachts, but many medium size commercial vessels. 

One dredging vessel cost me a lot of sleep.  He was moving very slowly on a course parallel to mine between the coast and the shipping lanes.  When I first spotted him I was slightly inside, towards the coast, and I was very slowly overtaking.  The result was that we got very close  and stayed that way  for hours until I could finally get past and move farther  out to sea.   Getting sleep is not really possible when so close to both the shore and also another vessel.

Route from Borkum marked in red

 Once in the Waddenzee I found myself going against the tide, but almost completely without wind.  It was slow motoring with an opposing current of up to 3 knots and not  really a fitting way to end the whole story. 

The customs did provide some entertainment.  I have gotten  used to them stopping me, and it had seemed strange that it had not yet happened this year.  It was all the more surprising when a 30-40m long customs vessel cruised past and did not stop.  My flag is like a magnet for such people.  Shortly after 3 customs people showed up in a rubber boat and made the usual request for papers.  The funny part was that I recognized  one of them, and he remembered stopping me  last year. 

Customs

How long until we meet again?

Another curiosity was a megayacht which motored slowly past.  I wonder what this thing has for a draft?  It probably has a lifting keel, but still the Waddenzee cannot be the right sort of place for it.  My guess is that it was coming back from sea trials, and was possibly built in one of the yards on the Ijsselmeer.

Megayacht

 The finest part of this last stage was in the last hour or so.  The sun was going down,  the tide was out, and there were lots of interesting reflections on the sandbanks as well as  the sunset.  There were a few bored seals resting on the sand, also huge numbers of birds.  It was a very peaceful scene.  I needed another camera to  do it justice. 

I tied up just as it was getting really dark.  Since leaving the marina I had sailed about 1700 miles, met a lot of fine people, experienced a great deal,  learned a lot, and have a huge collection of memories which will not go away. 

This was my first short handed race,  though almost certainly not my last.  I approached it with a combination of enthusiasm for the idea and also inner protest at some of the details.  Along the way my views have been  modified a lot, and  I have gained understanding for things which previously bothered me.  The gap between my present sailing standard and what is required to be competitive has become very obvious.  This will be worked on. 

Much of the experience and memories from this trip are not from the race itself, but of preparation, people and the return.  Much of the preparation was one-time only stuff, for which I am glad.  Next time there will not be this much, I hope.  The people  are always part of any new experience, and the return was a memorable experience in itself.

It will not be possible to start another event in the same frame of mind with which this one was started.  Now there is some experience, and future events will be measured on the 1000DH yardstick.  The flood of “firsts” in this event will not likely be  repeated – one can only be a first-timer once.  These “firsts” are a major portion of what has made this event so intense.

Next time I do the 1000DH my approach will be completely different, more of a racing approach.  Much will be done differently and hopefully better.  My viewpoint will likely change as well.  There will still be the places, people, and sights, but  the competitive aspect will be much more in focus. 

Other events will bring a different conditions and challenges, but this one will probably remain the most intense and significant, and the one longest remembered.

Bekkjarvik (once again) to …… Borkum?

Leaving Bekkjarvik was hard.  The sun was shining, the surroundings called, the people were friendly, I wanted to spend some time in the cafe and perhaps in the pub….   and I left instead.  Driving me on was that familiar feeling of time  running out, and also a sense of being foolish about the return the previous day. 

This time I carefully set up the wind vane before leaving.  This only takes a few minutes, but it is much easier when the boat is not rocking and there is no requirement to watch where I am going at the same time.  There  are various bits to assemble, and this goes much more quickly in a quiet environment.  There is also less likelihood of cotter pins and other small bits being dropped overboard.   This kind of preparation is important when you are alone.  Other things include having all required charts laid out ready for use, setting up waypoints in the GPS or chart plotter, having rain gear or other clothes ready for use and not stored away somewhere, etc. 

Once again there was sunshine and an easy start.  Bekkjarvik is in a rather sheltered spot between 2 islands, so there is not much wind to start with.  Once around the corner it gradually picked up. 

Once out in the sound there was the other temptation -  to head off further south through the passages between the islands.  There is a place called Skudeneshavn farther down south.  Everyone in Askoy thought it the finest place to stay on the coast.  This was very tempting, but I told myself that I had already lost so much time that I could no longer afford it.  Instead, I followed nearly the same path as the day before through the Selbjörnfjord and out to sea.  Out to open water, then turn left and straight on till morning. 

Retracing the steps of the previous day, events repeated themselves too.  The depth registered between 2 and 3 meters for most of the length of the fjord.  Told myself that this was nonsense, cursed the manufacturer again, and continued.  

Once out on the open ocean the depth showed at 5 meters for hours, though I knew that the real depth was in the hundreds.  There was about 18knots of wind, but the sea state still was more suited to the 28 knots from the day before.  Bumpy.  The wind came directly from the north, which is an awkward angle when the boat is supposed to sail due south.  I ended up making long tacks downwind.

Within a few  hours the wind was dying and Amalthea was moving slowly.  At times it seemed that the greatest movement was the mast rocking side to side in the swell.  Wave action seems to last much longer than wind.  In the distance the shoreline could be seen for most of the day, though I gradually moved farther off.  There were not many ships, though there was one large cruise liner heading south.

The slow speeds soon had me calculating that I could have been in the inside passages, seeing the sights and not even losing time compared to my present pace.  Frustrating.  Passing the area of Skudeneshavn also was  a bit frustrating, because I was nearly becalmed at the time.  However, I was also 30-40 miles offshore, so stopping was out.  Onwards.

Sometime the next day I was becalmed just off the southern Norwegian coast.  After a while there was a weak southerly wind, meaning that there had been a 180° wind change.  6-7 knots was not much, and tacking into it with a big swell was no fun.  Progress was slow.  Adding insult to injury,  a vessel from a small nearby fleet called on the radio, and said that one of the vessels was towing several miles of pipe behind him, and I had to keep clear.  At the time he was moving nearly parallel to me on a similar course and speed, blocking the course south.  It took hours to get past him. 

It was all very frustrating, and there had been almost no progress at all for nearly 12 hours.  At this rate it would take a week or more to get to Holland, and I didn’t have that much time.  I had just started considering the pros and cons of heading back to Mandal or another Norwegian port when there was a wind shift, and I found I could point the boat at Holland. 

Not long after this, in quiet and dry conditions, the computer failed.  No idea why.  Offshore, the charting program is a luxury, but I can do without.   The electronic charts in the computer do not count for legal or insurance purposes. The greater loss was the AIS system, which runs through the computer.  Without the AIS I could not be seen as easily by other  boats, and could not see them.  As required by law and insurance, I have a complete set of paper charts for all areas I sail in on board. This includes most of Norway, the entire English east coast, Holland, the German coast and even Denmark.  Charting would now be done the old fashioned way, with a pencil on paper charts.  

The latest wind shift was to my advantage and held at least 24 hours, during which the boat pointed straight at my intended destination in Holland.  There was a brief visit by dolphins, or perhaps they were grind whales.  There appeared to be two different sizes, smaller greyish ones and a much larger variety with a lot of white on them.  Whatever they were, they were pleasant to watch.  At the time I had the smaller compact camera on deck.  It has a slightly delayed shutter action, with the result that I now have about 10 photos of disturbed water where there had been a dolphin a second or so earlier. 

All was much of a muchness until we were about to cross the shipping lanes, directly north of my proposed entrance to the Dutch Waddenzee between the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling. 

The wind shifted again, to directly out of the south.  Of course, my proposed course was directly south.  Wind strength gradually increased to the low 30s, and the sea state got very rough.  My tacking angle got wider and wider, and I was not making progress any  longer.  In addition to all this I was just slightly north of the shipping lanes, which is not a good place to be tacking about in very poor visibility.  I reefed twice, then took down the mainsail entirely.  Even the jib became too much.  In the midst of all this the mounting for the wind generator broke.  One of the side struts broke, and then the sudden pressure snapped the base.  It hung partially over the side.  Recovering it was very difficult.  The heavy generator hung over the side at the end of the long pole, still held by one side strut and the electrical cable.  It was crashing about in the waves, and very close to the GPS antenna.  After a struggle I cut the electrical cable, the final strutt broke, and it went overboard.  In an ideal world it could have been saved, but there was also the boat to think about and the GPS antenna to be protected.  Now that the computer was down this GPS was a requirement.

I could not get over the shipping lanes further south, so the question was what to do?  If this was all to blow over in a few hours then waiting about was the obvious option.  If it was to last for days then going somewhere else entirely was the thing to do.  I had not heard a weather report for days. 

Several calls to the Netherlands Coast Guard did not receive an answer, I was probably out of range.  Finally I made a general call to “any vessel who can hear this”.  The first to answer was someone who replied in a rather bored voice that he thought the wind would subside to 20-25 the next day.  Minutes later a very American voice called and said he was from the tugboat Highland Vision.  He had heard the conversation and confirmed that the wind should decrease somewhat the next day.  He then asked what I intended to do.  “Wait it out” I said.  He then offered to phone anyone I mentioned and tell them that I would be late, but was safe.  Very kind of him.  I mentioned that he might tell the Dutch coast guard that I was drifting near the sea lanes, but he didn’t seem to like this as much.

For this trip no one had been given my contact list.  There had been such a list for the race itself, but the holder was now on vacation and I knew that he was not available.  There was also the issue if such calls would cause more concern than no information at all.  Most people who knew about the trip had not been given a firm time for return anyway.  At the time I completely forgot to have the Highland Vision inform my employers.

I waited out the night with all sails down.  Much to my surprise, the wind vane kept the bow more or less into the wind, and the boat rode out the waves remarkably calmly.  Every now and then there was a huge crash as another wave hit from  an awkward angle, but in all everything was very calm.  It was obvious that the boat itself was not in trouble, the issue was being run over.  When this all started the boat was on the edge of the shipping lanes, it was getting dark, and there were lots of other vessels about.  Without the AIS I was not particularly visible, and visibility was poor.  I could only hope that my radar reflector was good and that the ships actually remained in the shipping lanes.  I was gradually drifting away from them, to the north.  Turned on all sorts of unnecessary lights and went to sleep.  It was the longest sleep of the trip.

The next morning the wind had indeed eased off to the 20s, but the direction remained the same, directly from the south.   Off again.  Later in the afternoon the wind increased again,  with the same result as the previous day.  This time I altered course and had a relatively easy journey to the island of Borkum.  I tied up around midnight, and the boat is still there.

Bekkjarvik to……. Bekkjarvik

Bekkjarvik was once again a case of leaving somewhere interesting before I had really gotten around to looking at it.  However, time was pressing.  I left on a sunny morning, sailed around the corner, and out into the Selbjörnsfjorden.  What a fine place to sail.  Scenic stuff in all directions, the sun was out, it was warm, and as I approached the entrance to the fjord the wind increased noticably.  Amalthea was rocketing along at 7.5 knots or better, which for this boat is real speed.  Towards the entrance the sea also picked up a lot, it was getting bouncy.  This was a bit more wind and waves than really required, but it would be a fast trip south. 

The intention was to keep to the north side of the fjord until well beyond the entrance, because there were rocks on the southern side.  They were deep enough so that I should not be able to hit them, but there would be breaking water over them and generally they were good things to avoid. 

Selbjörnsfjord - with aproximate route marked

 After a while, still in the fjord, I noticed that the water seemed to be getting a lot shallower, quickly.  How so, it should be very deep here?  Only minutes before the depth was too much for my depth sounder, and it had merely displayed the word “deep”.  Now it was less than 50 meters and rapidly getting shallower.  I was a mile or so offshore, the sea was not behaving like it was shallow, no special breaking waves or disturbances.  Onwards.  At 15 meters I was getting nervous, and shortly after at 10 meters much more so.  In Holland 10 meters is deep, in Norway it may mean hitting something at any second. 

In a state of alarm I tacked when it hit 5 meters, and tacked several times again in the next few minutes when the depth got to less than  3.  If I had hit a rock at 7+ knots in this sea it would have destroyed the boat more or less instantly. 

Selbjörnsfjord - rocks circled in red, near the southern shore

This had to be a navigation problem.  The charting program showed depths of 100+ meters here, but perhaps this was a scaling issue again and I was a lot farther south than I thought?  Finally I sailed back into the fjord, until it was apparent that I was nowhere near a shallow area and there was something wrong with the depth measurement. 

With this in mind, headed back out again, this time keeping quite close to the deeper, north shore.  The same thing happened.  It is not a good feeling. 

In the middle of all this the pin which connects the electronic autopilot drive arm to the tiller broke.  No problem, there are about 5 spares.  However, I had forgotten to rig up the wind vane before I left.  Normally either wind vane or the autopilot takes over steering while repairs of any kind are being made.  Without the wind vane the boat could not be held on course while I put in a new pin.  In the midst of all this the depth showed 2 meters.  Frustrated and uncertain, I headed back to Bekkjarvik to sort things out. 

The last few miles into the harbour was just the stuff of dreams and advertising.  Sheltered flat water, warm sunshine, 20 knots of wind, and a scenic area.  Amalthea sailed beautifully, cutting cleanly and quickly  through the water.  Effortless power.

Once back, it soon became apparent that I had not been in the shallow area, the water had been between 100 and 200 meters deep.  Something was wrong with the depth instrument.  However, the compensation was spending another relaxing evening in Bekkjarvik with new-found friends.

to be continued……

Bekkjarvik

First stage of the return to Holland was supposed to be a trip through the inner passages to the open sea.  This is a great time for tourism.  Once offshore there is a certain sameness about the view, but in the passages there is much to look at.  For this reason there was no attempt to actually take the shortest route back. 

The general recommendation and also intention had been to go to Haugesund, but I never got there.  Instead, I motored through the passages, admired the sights, got rained upon, and finally ended up in a small place called Bekkjarvik.  It had been recommended by Thorwald from Askoy.

Bekkjarvik on the island of Selbjörn

 The passages are a treat, if the weather is nice.  Lots of colour, greens, and blues and rock.  Some  of the houses which are scattered along the route are well worth looking at, decorative and adornments to the landscape.  Of course, there is also the opposite sort. 

In the rain and  when it is cloudy the whole area takes on a grey colour, and one gets an idea of what it must be like in winter.  Grey and cold and wet.  The strong colours on many traditional houses are probably meant to offset this.

There were not many vessels about, but they varied from traditional boats to modern catamaran ferries to the  navy to huge offshore fishing vessels.  Relatively few pleasure craft. 

fishing vessel

 The fishing vessels fell into two catagories:  small and private, or huge and intended for offshore.  The big ones were really ships, and there were lots of them.

encountered en route

 When a medium sized naval vessel motored on past me, then stopped and lowered a boat, I though that my first inspection of the trip was about to happen.  So far I had made it all the way north without getting stopped, but it wasn’t likely to last.  In Holland I get inspected all the time.  In this case they had probably noticed my flag, jumped to all sorts of unpleasant and wrong conclusions, and were coming to check.  Much to my surprise, they ignored me and seemed to be busy with some sort of survey work.

Stopping for an inspection?

 Many of these minor islands are connected with large and modern bridges as well as ferries.  The size and expense of these things says something about the country, because the bridges are only serving quite small communities.

just before Bekkjarvik

 

There were a few seals about, but no sign of the huge herd (pod?) of grind whales which the Pendragon crew had seen a few days earlier.

The approach to Haugesund, which was supposed  to be the goal for the day, is guarded by a rocky area known as Sletta.  It is infamous for rough water in certain conditions.  A few years back a catamaran ferry hit a rock here in rough weather, and sank with much loss of life.  I wasn’t so sure I wanted to try this in the dark (or was feeling lazy), so the temptation to stop in Bekkjarvik was quite strong.

Bekkjarvik is an ex-fishing port.  Recently there has been a lot of renovation, with more projected.  The harbour itself is tiny, there might be space for 30 visiting boats.  Nice rockwork, some statues, and attractive buildings about.  The harbour building complex is a combination of museum, shops, library, coffee shop and fashion stuff.  Generally a pleasant atmosphere.  Small enough so that if you meet several other crews then you have met a significant proportion of all those there.  The walkways and promenades around the harbour had a number of barbeques, and the crews were using them.  The main building complex was full of photos of the old fishing days, and also models of vessels from the past 200 years. 

Barrel making machine

 One of the back rooms had an exihibition of  barrel making tools.  This was probably a big business locally years ago.

As always, it was a shame leaving this newfound place without having the time to really explore.  In addition to this there were new friends from other boats with whom I would have like to spend more time.

Evening in Bekkjarvik

 

Summer evening in Bekkjarvik

 

Tuesday, July 19th

today I am finally back in my apartment.  My boat is in Borkum, Germany, not in Holland where it is supposed to be.  It is a long story.  Since I notice through the site statistics that many people are still logging on daily, I post this merely to say that I am back, that readers are not forgotten, and that the story will be continued until Amalthea is back in the proper marina in Holland.

Tomorrow evening the story will be resumed.  In the meantime, it  shall be said that the North Sea was crossed again, this time solo.  Most of the trip was slow and difficult, there was a fair amount of breakage, and near the end I considered setting off a distress signal.  Fortunately that didn’t happen, because it would have had to be recalled.  Amalthea and I arrived on our own in Borkum, without outside assistance.

Bergen again

actually, not in Bergen, but the yacht club on Asköy, which hosted the end of the first leg of the 1000DH as well as most of the boats after the finish.  About 10 to 12km outside of Bergen.

Yesterday, with the help of several club members, the mast was removed from the boat and the top inspected.  The broken halyard problem did not have an obvious solution.  There were no extra long screws inserted into the masttop, no foreign objects, and nothing was obviously out of place.  However, the sheave which the halyard runs on had rough and sharp edges.  In the absence of something more spectacular, these edges will have to take the blame.  Not really the convincing reason I had hoped for, but something must have caused the problem.  The result was that I spent 1 to 2 hours, often in steady rain, sanding down the edges with very fine sandpaper.  1200 grit is not really ideal for this, but was what I had on board.  It is best used for polishing stainless surfaces, not for smoothing out rough edges. Later someone came along and offered some 600 grit.  At least the edges are now a lot better and even look shiny.  I just love doing this in the rain.  Every now and then I would take a break and stand under shelter until the rain eased off somewhat.

After dealing with the sheave, the next step was to replace the running lights.  These had fallen from the mounting at the masttop in the last heavy weather, and had been hanging from the electrical cable.  The mounting is held by 3 screws to the mast, and these had simply pulled out.  I replaced them, and added 2 more.  The wind that evening must have exerted a lot of pressure.

In various pauses during the day people asked what my plans were, and on hearing them there was a flood of recommendations for stops on the way.  No one agrees.  Eggersund, which is strongly recommended in the Norwegian Cruising Guide, is clearly out of favor with this group.  So is Tananger, a favorite of 2 other friends.  I had been considering both.  There followed a long discussion, and I ended up with enough recommendations to last a whole season. 

Setting up the rig again got drownded in the rain, and finally it got postponed until this morning.  Instead, I listened to the rain on the cabintop all night and only got up when it stopped raining.

Today the rig was set up again, with a lot of help from club members.  Norwegians seem to like much greater rig tension than the Dutch.  Certainly it has never been this tight before, and people here discuss getting it much more so. 

The next step was to fix the broken AIS antenna, which seems to have worked.  After that I may have even gotten the autopilot compass working.  That will be apparent tomorrow.

By the time all this work was done it was too late to leave, so I can enjoy the evening here.

The plan for tomorrow is to motor through the inside passages to Haugesund, about 70 miles from here.  The passages should be scenic.  The Pendragon crew, who were just leaving as I arrived, said that they had seen about a herd of about 200 small whales in one of the fjords.  That would be a real bonus.

Next…

there are a number of people who keep on looking here daily.  Many thanks to these loyal viewers, I am surprised at the attention this blog has received.

There is no intention to post anything new for a couple of days. 

On Friday evening I will be flying to Norway, and on Saturday will see what can be done about the masttop.  Following that there will be a delivery to Holland, conditions permitting.  Hopefully there will be an opportunity for a stop or two on the way down the Norwegian coast.  The charts and the Norwegian Cruising Guide suggest that this is the ideal place to cruise a boat, at least in good weather.  It will be a shame  to have to pass by most of it.