Ebeltoft is a 700 year old small Danish town on the east coast of Jylland at the northern end of Samso bay. We made a short stop heat last time (2017) and this time we wanted to see more of this nice tow, said to be one of the best representatives of typical Denmark (of old?). Its old buildings and streets are to a large extent preserved. It is a bit of the normal rout but, well worth the effort of the extra 10 nm.
Entering the harbour we had a real scare. The engine stopped as we were turning to align to our mooring. Luckily, there was room enough to manoeuvre and speed to turn around and unfurl the genoa and sail out of the harbour. At anchor outside the harbour we checked filter and other stuff but, did not find anything wrong.
So we started again and the engine ran like clockwork, also under load. We dared to enter again after 30 minutes of motoring around. We did a more thorough check the following day. No dirt, air or water in the filter and, again no problems running loaded.
If anyone has similar experience, please let us know. It is very unnerving to have a problem without explanation and unable to replicate. Was it a one-time hiccup from dirt, water or air? Can we trust the engine in a potentially dangerous situation?
We have now spent two days in this lovely town. It claims to host the world’s largest wooden ship, the gaff rigged naval ship Jylland built in oak and equipped with an auxiliary steam engine. It is on display in a dry dock and has its own museum.
The world’s smallest city hall stands on the town square (to the right in the picture). Every Saturday, like today, there is music on the square. Today, it was traditional New Orleans Jazz. Some of the members in the band had obviously had long experience of playing.
It was interesting to note that the local sports clubs did not run lotteries or sell simple street food. Instead, and (at least in our slightly prejudice minds) true to Danish tradition, they provided ample supply of reasonably priced bear to the audience.
A hazy evening on the bay outside the harbour just before sunset.
We have had a lovely peaceful day in perfect summer weather on the Danish island Anholt today. We took a long walk on this unique island after arriving yesterday evening. The island is basically a large sand dune and the eastern part is by definition a dessert. Our walk did not take us that far, next time…
The soutn beach lookin westAnd looking east. Beyond the more lies the dessert, and you may not cykle there so it is a long walk.
Today we cycled even further and had a lovely lunch in the quiet garden of “Tanternas hus” (The old ladies house) in the small village. The old ladies turned out to be in their twenties; maybe they plan to keep the place for a long time.
We sailed over from Sweden yesterday after some days going south along the coast with cray fish party on Saturday and dinner with friends on Sunday. At anchor on Monday afternoon, we finally got our new AIS working. It is now possible to follow us again.
We had a hectic two days at home. On Thursday morning we picked up the new autopilot and it was up and running, steering the boat on a short test run, by nine in the evening. A major part of the work was to remove the old pilot and AIS without removing anything we needed in order to keep the rest of our old instrument running. We are still using the old motor drive for the quadrant, with the new one as spare.
Never a dull moment
A new autopilot meant the introduction of a third network on board. We now have the old and new Raymarine Seatalk and Seatalking respectively in addition to the NMEA2000. Friday was spent trying to make all three of them to communicate, and to supply data to our laptop. Most of it is working and, after the start-up of the AIS, the only thing we cannot see is AIS signals from other ships on our old E80 plotter. But, we see them on the computer and on our new i70 multi instrument so we were OK passing the major shipping lanes to and from the Baltic yesterday.
After a very long period of fitting out and “restoring” after the renovation work on deck and cabin rooftop and the new engine, we are now finally sailing again.
We are slowly getting used to Sallys new look
We did a “short shake-down” cruise in late July before she was finished and then continued the work. Now most (of the important) things are in place and we are enjoying a few days on the cost. We will be back in Ljungskile Thursday and Friday for a number of “must do” things, plus loading up with more stuff and putting more things back on the boat. We are leaving again on Saturday for a four week sail in Scandinavia, weather permitting (or rather good enough for us to want to sail).
A beautiful day with Eva’s sister and her friends.
Our navigations instruments are slowly giving up on us, maybe not surprising after 15 years and close to 30 000 nm. So far this year, we have lost the AIS transmitter and one repeater instrument. And, yesterday the autopilot gave up. New things have been ordered and we hope to be up and running, except for the not so necessary repeater, when we leave again on Saturday. And you will be able to follow us on Marin traffic and similar sites again.
We have, for the second time, been awarded the Imray price from The Mediterranean sailors of the Swedish Cruising club for articles in Odyssé 2021 “Water makers in the Mediterranean” and “Shift to lithium batteries step by step”.
Last year it was for articles in Odyssé no 2 2020 and 3 2020 “Caught in Spanish quarantine” and “Two safe ports are better than none” ‘a clarifying account of the Spanish Corona situation and of escaping therefrom through nonstop home-sail along closed coasts’.
As we write this, we have a lovely winter in Sweden with ice on the bay and some snow. Let’s all hope for a good year 2022. But first, let us tell you a little bit about our year 2021. We will be linking to our blog if you want to read some more, it is in English this year to inspire more to sail in our lovely home waters.
Hakans had an operation on his right shoulder last fall and it was gradually recovering during the spring allowing him to work on Sally finishing just in time for the season.
Eva started working full time in February as a Swedish teacher for immigrants. This kept her occupied until end of June and we had to change our sailing plans to adapt to this.
Our goal for the summer had been to sail the Baltic and Bothnian coasts. A time was now reduced, we had to concentrat on the Bothnian Sea and Bay. Hakan sailed Sally relatively quick around the south of Sweden, mostly with friends and relatives.
Hakans brother gave a hand on the last legs past Stockholm to Gavle, the start of “Norrland” as northern Sweden is called. The girls drove up by car and we celebrated a traditional Midsummer with sailors from sailing clubs in Gavle and continued a bit north before brother and wife left us.
We continued sailing north along the coast and in the fantastic archipelagos. We visited many nice fishing villages and harbours. The High Coast was among our favourites and there we climbed the highest island in Sweden, Mjalton. Continuing north we visited Eva’s son and old and new friends. We arrived in Sweden’s northernmost harbour on July 15th. This concluded a 1 400 nm sail along the coast of Sweden.
Our original plan was to sail east and to continue south along the Finish coast but, we did not have the time available as Eva had to start work by the end of the summer. Instead, we picked up a nice westerly that took us south again at speed.
By the end of July, we were back in Gavle. Leaving the town after provisioning, the old engine gave up on us so we ended up on a mud bank and had to be towed back. We did not want to spend money on a questionable and possibly costly and time consuming repair. As we had already decided to put Sally indoors on a yard this winter, she went home on a trailer.
We drove north again in our car to the wedding of Evas son before slowly driving home. We had planned to visit many of our friends along the coast whilst sailing home. Now, we only managed a few of them with the car.
Our summed did not end as planned. Looking at our misfortune from a brighter side, we saw the advantage of having one more month to work on Sally in the yard and we are really looking forward to having a new engine next year.
We absolutely enjoyed the Bothnian coast. Sometimes we felt like in another country, a country where it did not get dark at night and where fellow sailors still help each other to dock. Where in mid-July there was always room in the harbor and fees were very moderate often including electricity, laundry, sauna, barbecue area and company with other crews in the evening. We had a wonderful time and are forever grateful for all the new acquaintances and for the friendly welcome we received.
This fall has been one of work. For Eva full time as a teacher and for Hakan almost full time in the yard. October and November were rainy and depressing – as always. December have been much better with snow and many sunny days. We had a lovely Christmas visiting our children and grandchildren. One our Christmas gifts were to learn that our seventh grandchild is to be expected in the summer.
We are now looking forward to 2022. Hopefully, vaccine combined with springtime will eventually allow more freedom of movement including sailing in other countries. We are planning to sail in our home waters this summer and hope to be able to visit with our sailing fiends along the coasts.
This year has been a year in Swedish for us. We are well and at home in our little house by the sea. The weather is very wintery with snow covered fields and ice on the bay.
We will try and summarise the year shortly. Look for the next post. Why not register for updates, form at bottom of this (quite long) page.
We started driving south after the wedding in Umea after several very nice days with the family.
Skuleberget lies very close to the coast. It is possible to sail there but, time had not allowed us to do so. We now stopped on our way south on a rainy day. Luckily, the clouds lifted and we were able to take the ski lift to the top and walk around the 295 m high mountain top enjoying the impressive views. Skuleberget has the highest old coastline in the world. We found it near the top at 286 meters above today’s sea level. The walk down to the car on the ski slope was a bit slippery but we made it safely.
We had planned to visit many of our sailing fiends whilst sailing home along the coast. We still wanted to see them and managed to visit some of them with the car instead. We also stopped in the lovely small town of Trosa. A harbour we would have liked to visit.
Walking along the river in Trosa
Last stop on our little road trip was with Birgitta and Leif in Timmernabben. Leif was duty “harbourmaster” and had reserved a nice spot for Sally. Unfortunately, we had to disappoint him but we were never the less treated royally.
Looking enviously at a boat on a mooring outside Pataholm
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We sorted out all the arrangement and found a transport home for Sally. Eva went home Thursday to return Monday with our car.
Torgessons, a transporter from Orust, was going to deliver a boat to
Lulea and was passing Gavle with an empty trailer on Wednesday. This was
perfect for us and at a very fair price. We had great help from Jens in
figuring out how to lift the boat. He suggested Fliskar (Fliskär) marina. They
have a mast crane capable of 600 kg which is enough for our rig. He also helped
us find a mobile crane to lift the boat on the trailer.
The engine did not cooperate when we tried to start it to go to Fliskar
yesterday. We did not dwell too much over this, just called Jens. He promised
to tow us out with his boat. He did so most expertly and gently in the
afternoon and put us by the mast crane. Unfortunately, the crane did not allow
us the vertical lift we need for our keel steped mast.
We had to reschedule the mobile crane for today to allow time to also lift the mast. No problem in principle but, instead of having plenty of time to take everything of the mast and prepare it for transport the job now had to be squeezed to a very short time.
Sally ready for transport to Vindo Marin for the winther.
All this made our day today very mixed. The transport arrived early and
the crane arrived on time at 1 pm. Until then, we had very little to do but to
drink coffee and eat lunch, then started a hectic activity as the very
expensive mobile crane clock was ticking.
Everything went smoothly with two very experienced and careful professionals and with help from friendly club members lending a hand as they were passing by. In a little more than two hours the rig was lifted and the mast stripped clean and Sally loaded.
Mellanfjarden
We started our drive north late afternoon after winding down some. We are on our way to Evas son Daniels wedding in Umea (Umeå) on Saturday with some extra time on our hands. We had decided to visit Mellanfjarden, a nice old fishing village that we had not been able to fit in as we passed by. We had secured the last room in the small hotel there yesterday. Tonight, we had a nice dinner in their dock side restaurant making completely different plans for our two remaining weeks before work starts.
We came back to Granskar (Granskär), where we celebrated Midsummer, one month ago, on Monday after a 900 nm tour to the north. It has been a fantastic month in excellent summer weather. We had spent the day close reaching in easterlies giving us a quick run down from Kusokalv.
The next day, we went in to Gavle for provisioning. Last time was Lulea,
9 days ago and there was very little food left on-board. On leaving Gavle, the engine
failed us in the narrow, dredged fairway. We tried to get the sails up but
there was not enough space so we got stuck in the mud.
We were just outside the harbour, only some hundred meters from the rescue
vessel of SSRS. They came out, after a few phone calls, and pulled us free and
towed us back to the harbour. The Swedish Sea Rescue Society offers a service
to their members where we can call for assistance; this was the first time ever
for us.
We have had increasing problems with the fresh water cooling water system
for quite some time now, having to fill water before we start up the engine. What
happen today was that as we increased power a little more than normal to go
against the head wind, pressure in the system increased and a hose connection came
apart. We heard the “bang” but taught that we maybe had hit something in the
water. We learned differently as the temperature alarm sounded.
We also got help to contact a mechanic who came the same afternoon. His
conclusion is that the cylinder head or gasket is damaged as there was quite a
lot of exhaust gases in the cooling water. From what we see today, there is no
water leaking into the cylinder(s) so we are able to move the boat short
distances under our own steam carefully and at low revs.
The repair is difficult, maybe time consuming at
this time of the year, and costly. We have decided that we will replace the engine
instead. We have moved to the marina and are now trying to puzzle together a
lift out and transport of the boat to our planned winter yard who will install
the new engine. Eva has gone home by train to return by car early next week
when we hope to have everything organised.
I denna blog skriver vi lite nu och då om båten och våra seglatser. Kontakt: sally@bikan.se +46708220250
