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| Happy indeed is the WAYFARER ! Certainly we were as the W-Rally-members from DK, Holland, Norway and UK waved us good-bye from these wonderful surroundings and the good W-fellowship here at Malö. Our dep. date was the 7th. of AUG at about 11:00, and after on the wind, tack, tack and tack again, for our first night stop, just free northbound of the SOTE-kanal(which must be tackled under engine power), we landed in a shallow water bay facing E.(morning sun!) on the SOTE-island. Dick unfortunately slid on a treacherous rock, cut his knee and bled quite a bit, but was taken good care of by Kristian, while the skipper gave Dick some stern orders of getting down on his back with his bleeding leg up on the storage box. The after arrival standard anchor-dram(shot of whiskey) helped us all, so I trust! | ||||||
| Pic's from Malö by Dick : |
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| Bo & Neel |
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The next day sunny with fairly weak winds we had a nice lunch-break on the
windward isles of VÄDERÖERNE about 7nm from the mainland out in the open
sea. A marvellous place on a fine summerday, but indeed a most serious one
of violent activity in foul weather! Further south off this coast is a
group of skerries with the ominous, foreboding name of PATERNOSTER !
That evening after yet another long sailing day(two to sail and one down
to rest as we did long ago in the 220 nm *Around Sealand Race* - took us
52hrs.45min.) we entered the fantastic Koster-skerries during a most
lovely and beautiful evening. Naturally we had to press on - our
anchor-dram was waiting, and soon after a fantastic peach-yellow-orange
moon(that made Dick homesick as the peach-harvest is on back home in Ohio,
and his knee-wound was healing well - ready to climb the
trees!) emphasized the mar-vels of nature all around us.
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Next morning we headed into the sound between North and South Koster Isles
refreshing(KRI + and I) the memory of our Wayfarer- fam.tent-basecamp on
the meadow - 30 years ago - near great-grandpa's fishing shed(still there
protected in the Nature Reserve). We landed behind the Fish
Restaurant for water, shopping and to say 'hello' to the relatives of my
late wife+mother in law. They were surprised and happy to see Kristian,
Mait's firstborn son, now outsizeing his father.
From there again we set course seaward for the SWE-NOR border, intending
'pressure/isobar-sailing', expecting the westing on the surface of the
universal related wind(as our globe turns eastward !) passing west of the
most westward skerry, HEIA, in the wide open sea about 7,5nm due west of
the mainland.
Now back in Norway we lowered our Swedish courtesyflag(been used for 36
years on W1348). The waters of Sweden sank behind us, and soon after we
got an increasing SW-wind, but none of us wanted the spinnaker. This good
working wind I trust was a ther-mal influenced one due the heated
mainlands of Norway ahead of us. It gave us a fair speed towards HANKØ(in
the sound herof is the racing/sailing 'Mecca' of Norway). A narrow creek
here on the coast by the Outer Oslofjord(about WtSW of FREDRIKSTAD) was
just right for our night stop.
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| View East-ward bay of Malö. W1348 at far right getting ready for dep. | Koster-skerries - preparing nightstop. Kristian + Ken snr. | Ken Jensen snr. |
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On Sunday morning, the next day, our intended dest. was Son Bay(10 km
north of MOSS and ~21nm south of Oslo), where W-sea-man Kristian should
meet his fam., and W1348 evt. stay overnight. This trip along the mainland
was'nt very pleasant due to rather weak winds and unbelieveable hordes of
motorboats moving nearly on top of us at very high speeds, and with about
90% of them behaving like lunatics with no sea-sense at all(really I felt
ashamed)! Dick was quite angry and ready to report the lot to the
US-Coast Guard, whereas I wanted a large battery of WAYFARER-torpedoes, or
some kind of 'ray-gun' that could turn off their ignition!
Well, if the weather-gods had brought us grey sky, rain and more wind
these hollow-skulls would have vanished instantly !
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| We passed the canal by MOSS, between the island of JELØY and the mainland. This is where my late wife, two youngest boys and I came one Saturday morning under the mainsail only, and a most helpful man shouted to us: "Be careful they do'nt open the bridge on Saturday and Sunday!" Pretrending not having heard I cupped my ears and shouted: "What!" He repeated himself quite loudly and with some alarm in his voice as we were then about 20 meters off the bridge. There our mast and mainsail came down and we drifted under the bridge by the southerly breeze. He looked quite surprised, smiled and waved threatening at us! Really we(or rather I) had deserved 'the finger' from this gentleman - wanting to be a helpful guy! Most people do'nt give a 'hoot'! |
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| Last nightstop Outer Oslofjd. by Hankø-sound. Ken snr. in W. and Krist. getting the grill going! | Dragør Harbour. Ken jnr. + Dick bef. D.'s dep for N.A. and Detroit. |
| At Son, after KRI disembarked, we decided to continue towards Høvik due an increased southerly seabreeze. The crazy motorboat-frenzy was even worse further north from Son towards Oslo, where a big Power Boat Race had taken place, and every damned mindless fool in a planing motorboat was copying that event. It was especially bad at the narrow part by the Fort Oscarsborg/ DRØ-BAK, where the guns and torpedo batteries stopped Hitler's pride, the heavy battle-cruiser "Blücher", in the early, unannounced war- morning start of 1940 APR 09. It's still at the bottom of the fjord, and after being pumped out, now - at present - leaking little oil in relation to earlier, where oil was smelled and seen on the surface. |
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Dick helmed hard - his knee still bandaged, but o'kay now - in order to
dodge the big, confused and breaking waves, from both sides. That however,
alerted a bit of nervousness in me a few times, as I choose spraying water
to an unintentional gybe, since we were moving quite fast under winged
sails, and with a fairly tight set gybe-preventer and kicker as well.
W1348's sprayhood helped to keep out some water. "Bloody stupid people!"
was a very 'gentle' often repeated remark, and Dick wanted to file several
reports for mind-/reckless powerboat-stupidity. Only about one out of 25
of them showed intent of taking care, and the rascals came by the hundreds
with total empty-headed lack of seamanship - much too clearly shown !
Some of them even laughing and pointing there fingers at us. Of course no
Water Police was seen there?
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Naturally arriving(ATA 22:15) at the homeport is always a treat with an
anchor-dram and a delicious shower awaiting us! So thats how we rounded
off a wonderful 4 days W-cruise in good weather. About he same distance,
MARSTRAND - OSLO, was sailed by W1348 in 1967 in two days - doing some
very *solid*, quite nerveracking, planing then!
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| KenW1348"Maitken", Høvik, Norway |
