Arrival: Steinsoya near Lyngør 58:37.806N 009:06.801E
Pelagia
Frans & Sarah Toonen
Tue 5 Aug 2014 15:39
| Tuesday 5th August, Wind Westerly 4 increasing to Westerly 6, Mainly overcast with occasional sunny spells. 85.2nm. Engine 4.2 hours. Very early departure from Skagen, up at 3:30 and away from the quay at 3:45. Fueled up as we used quite a bit motoring in the canal. Self service fuel pump took a bit of working out as it would not take our debit card but only our credit card. It also had a 1000 Kroner limit but you can just re-enter the credit card details, we’re therefore not sure what the function is of the limit. We had been waiting for the right wind and today the forecast was for westerly F4 to F5 which meant sailing as close to the wind to get as far west as possible on the Norwegian east/south coast. Usually we assume we can sail at a 45 degree angle to the wind which from Skagen would get us to about Arendal. However the high winds from the previous days had left an unusual high wave action of about 2 meters which was knocking us off course and at times we could do no better than 60 degrees making us head north which would only get us as far west as Oslo. We decided to motor sail for a bit to force us closer to the wind but with the wave action the engine stopped picking up cooling water and started to overheat… engine off. Luckily as the day progressed the wind shifted a little and we were able to make landfall reasonably far westward. The wind had picked up to a force 6… I promised Sarah a lively crossing and she certainly got that. Because the engine water cooling system was broken we sailed to our anchorage as far as possible before we started the engine, then a quick motor (½ mile) and drop the anchor quickly so that we could turn off the engine and fix the cooling pump. We’ve done this a few times now and the pump was fixed within 15 minutes. We then spend the next 2 hours relaying the anchor in a suitable position. The anchorage was a little deeper than we would have liked, the shallower the depth the less anchor chain you have to put out and hence you have a shorter swinging circle for when the wind changes direction. This anchorage was 9 meters deep and you would normally put 4 times the depth out in chain (4*9=36meters) plus the length of the boat (15meters) means a swinging circle of about 80 meters. To stop us swinging the option is to put either a line ashore or drop the second anchor off the stern. Tried option 1 first by swimming ashore but the line was too short and in the end we dropped our stern anchor for the first time… Bow and stern anchor down to prevent us swinging onto the rocks. |