Infamous Statt

South Pacific Familyadventure 2008
Claes Brodin
Sun 9 May 2021 23:41
Already in the times of the vikings the peninsula of statt was mentioned in their sagas. Instead of sailing around the peninsula protruding out in the Atlantic ocean,the vikings pulled their ships over the neck of the peninsula.
Shipping companies of today loose loads of money waiting out gales and storms in these waters and recently the Norwegian parliament has finally decided to build the worlds first tunnel for shipping through the neck of the infamous peninsula.
The reason for it´s bad reputation is a combination of high frequency of gales/storms in the area, it´s protrusion straight out in the Atlantic ocean coming near the continental shelf,and this combined with strong currents creates dangerous seas with overfalls .
This was also the only area where I had a galewarning (30-40kts of winds from NE with confused seas and as seen from the forecast the area of gale is quite local around the Statt peninsula ). Preparing Dora Mac for bad weather storing everything safely I also launched the paravanes and set a bottomreefed mainsail.
Reaching the area just before midnight passage was in darkness but mainly having downwind and following seas,Dora Mac behaved remarkably well. Also I was in company with a fishing trawler which made me feel less lonely.
At 02.30 I was safely tied up alongside in the port of Selje and got a good nights sleep. Statt stands up to it´s reputation but Dora Mac also proved to be a very seaworthy boat.

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