Sunday: July 1st: Sitting in the quiet boatyard at Alsvik on the Swedish side of the Baltic at 10pm as the sun makes its leisurely way to the horizon, the world looks a peaceful and unthreatening place. What a difference a few hours make!
This was toughest day’s sailing by far. Leaving Björkör we knew there was a new front forecast to start building around noon so we slipped our lines at 6am and laid a course WSW to our destination of Fejan about 32 miles away. We figured we could average 5 knots, even with a few deviations for shoals, and so we’d be only an hour away by the time the wind came up. As always the best laid plans of mice and men….
We made good early progress under genoa and full main and the conditions stayed calm – mostly in the 6-8kt range. We both wanted to explore the capabilities of the boat’s Cap Horn windvane and felt this was really the first time we had enough open water to use it. We tinkered with Sune (as Andy and Mia had dubbed her) for a few hours and got her to work intermittently but sadly we dallied a little too long. Still, the Swedish coastline looked barely 10nm away when the wind started to build but as can always be the case in sailing, things deteriorated quickly. As we started to get overpowered with gusts to the mid-20s and a growing swell from the north east I pondered my options: send myself up to the bucking foredeck (with no bow pulpit) to swap out the genoa for the 100% jib, or simply drop the main and go jib and jigger. I had wanted to try the fore-and-aft configuration for a while and this seemed like the ideal time. Although the boat immediately got back on her feet beating to weather was a lot of work and I knew there were plenty of inviting harbors further south west, so I decided to run before the wind on jib alone. Unfortunately the wind had other ideas, it both continued to build and move steadily westwards and then to the south, forcing me more and more to the south west while flying along at speeds of 6.5-7kts with the wind on our quarter. With plenty of shallow water approaching this was turning into a very nervous ride for us both. We tried to seek shelter at a place J found on Navionics named Rodlöga, but this turned out to be more trouble than it was worth. It featured a tiny channel facing north east, the direction the wind was now coming from, and led down to a small hamlet with a concrete pier and three feet of water. The idea leaving Arcturus to the tender mercies of a relentless swell and a concrete pier was a non-starter, so we motored back up against the chop and decided to cross west towards Blidö. J was fairly beat and went below at this time, leaving me to either handle the tacking single-handed and beat up to the north end of Blidö, or instead put the boat on a reach to the south end, where we could at least rely on a sheltered channel for the north. Another tiring three hours went by before I looked for an east-west alternative to the prevailing wind and found the sheltered Alsvik Marina, where we pulled into a pontoon berth. Cue beer, bread and cheese and a quick look around. It was now 7pm and our 32 mile, six hour jaunt had turned into an exhausting, 52nm, 13 hour passage in very challenging conditions. But we madeit home safely. We both slept very well that night.
However the difficulty of what should have been a simple passage taught me a few lessons I was determined to take on board. For all the ease of boarding, I really wanted a bow pulpit to make it safer switching out headsails. I determined that I would have one fabricated, open at the front in the Swedish fashion, from my existing pulpit, over the winter. I also decided that the old saw about reefing as soon as you start to think about it, would be incorporated into my sailing habits immediately. And when it comes to testing out new gear – like the windvane – I vowed never to do it ahead of a big front coming in. All just common sense really, but sometimes you need a kick in the ass to do the obvious thing. I know I did.
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