Coming out on the North Sea we turned southwest heading for the Dutch Frisian Islands through the inshore traffic zone (180Nm). With winds from NW of 20kts and 1,2mtr seas on the beam we hoisted the mainsail, furled out parts of the headsail and launched the paravanes giving us a reasonable ride. Passing the North Frisian islands at nighttime several fishingtrawlers kept us busy and one of them came to close forcing us to alter course and have a searchlight to avoid their trawlinggear.Having no AIS we still tried to reach them on VHF but with no reply.

As mentioned before cargoships are seldom any problem even in heavily trafficated areas (they allways have AIS and answer VHF) but fishingtrawlers in darkness and fog can be a big challenge.