Under dark skies

I’ve chickened out after reading weather forecast for Saturday - deep low pressure system moves over us from Norway, SMHI and meteo.pl showing heavy wind and lots of rain, warnings issued for Ålands sea. I turned down Marek who wanted to sail with his son on Meritaten - with such weather it would not be fun.

It turned out that there was only little rain, indeed quite strong wind and beautiful weather! I went to Stockholm to see a similar boat for sale - but requiring total renovation - so I did not sail. And regretted that!

Today the forecast was showing cloudy sky, some rain and no wind. In the afternoon I went to harbour anyway - apparently our Bay of Squalls, as I call Norrtäljeviken, somehow slips outside the forecast. There was wind and there was lots of it! Weather looked like it would rain but I wanted to sail today so I quickly rigged the boat and cast off at 15:30.

I considered shortening the mainsail but after a while I’ve decided that we go under full mainsail and reduced genua instead: the wind was coming directly from East so to move into the Bay we had to beat all the time against the wind.

After passing Harkön I entered wider water, enabling me some exercises in storm tactics: heaving-to. After some sail and rudder adjustments I could pretty quickly stop the boat on the open water. Virtues of the full-length keel of traditional boat!

We continued then a bit further into the Bay, close hauled, at speeds ranging around 4 knots. Sea was covered with wind but Meritaten glided through nicely and securely.

After 1,5h of closed-hauled pleasures I decided to head back home - my girls promised to pick me from the harbour after 17:00. The way back was a pure leisure - on a broad reach, suddenly soundless as we were running with the wind - I was enjoying calmness of the situation, contrary to the darkening skies around.

Unrolled genua, set on butterfly-mode with the main sail. We were the only sailboat within sight.

Sun was already low and managed to give us a kiss through a sudden opening in cloudy sky.

At 17:30 we were back in the berth and while I was preparing the boat for the night I noted that weather started to quickly deteriorate. Shortly after my girls picked me from the harbour it started to rain. Nice timing indeed.

Preparations for valdeck repairs

As the season is coming to end I’m preparing myself for coming repairs.

One of the more important thing is to glue the valdeck planks. This is the rounded top-side of the freeboard, characteristic to Laurinkosters and giving them additional strength compared to traditional, flat-decked boats.

When built the boat was glued, additionally to copper-riveting, for additional strength and water tightness. Cascofen glue after around 60 years is loosing strength and the first place to notice it is on valdeck on our boats. The standard way is to saw through the planking’s connection and glue-in a thin stripe of mahogany. Sawing should be no less than 75% of the plank thickness.

To measure the thickness I tried sticking in a metall ruller between the planks. Nope - it was too thick to get there. Instead I took a scrap piece of 250um steel plate - and that did the trick.

Scribing the plate enabled me exact measurement of plank thickness - and to my (positive) surprise the amount of wood is substantial!

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17-18 mm in this spot. I will then assume 15mm as a safety factor which gives me width of glue around 10 - 11mm. Now it’s time to look for mahogany!

Manoeuvring practice

Weather forecast for Saturday promised moderate wind and sunny weather so we set up daysailing for early afternoon. Marek wanted to get some training in handling a sailboat so I didn’t want to get us into some dramatic weather for this first trip.

Short safety introduction, basic line-and-sail terminology and we’ve left NSS harbour before 13:00, on engine - with SW wind. There was no need to reef sails so with both main and genua we headed past Harkö, where there usually is stronger wind and there is enough space to train manoeuvring. Marek took over the rudder and main sail, I cared for genua and my pipe.

After some exercises there - during which we probably scared Mats on his tug boat passing-by - we headed further East into Norttäljeviken to the waterways’ junction close to Rosättra. That’s the second wide place where there are usually stronger winds.

There it became little more exciting - to the point that I rolled-in half of the big genua, for easier handling.

We headed back home, mostly beating against the wind, with few gusts on the way. Around 17:00 the boat was safely moored so a pint of Polish beer could be executed.

What not to like?

Daysail to Rosättra

Since I’m back to daywork it is now only weekends that we can go sailing on Meritaten.

Saturday had beautiful weather but there was absolutely no wind. Dead-flat sea in Norrtäljeviken. I attended some house-keeping procedures: cleaned the deck from spider nets and birds’ crap, cleaned and pumped-out the bilge etc.

After heavy rain there was water on the mast step so I wrapped the mast collar on deck level with tape.

Ugly as hell but should work fine. It’s not visible anyway, hidden under my home-made mast collar.

Mast sliders, from stainless steel, which came with the new main sail do not slide well so I replaced them with old nylon sliders which sat on the old sail. Hopefully they will work better and not jam while rising or dropping the sail - most annoying, especially at hard wind. The problem is that my mast profile is so old that there is no way to buy nylon sliders for it any longer. Together with Polish sailmaker we found these steel sliders as closest fit - and I re-worked them to fit the profile but anyhow some sliders were jamming on flogging sail. Nylon should work better.

Around 14:00 there came wind - land breeze. It was too late for me to start sailing so I took a long walk home, enjoying this beautiful summer day in my city.

Advantages of not driving to the harbour - one can take a beer on the way home, with the view on ones boat!

The city centre, previously occupied by old and non-functioning cargo harbour, is now rebuilt into residential district with few pubs and restaurants. One pub serving our local brewery beers. What not to like?

With Meritaten prepared for sailing I went home with the plan to do some day-sailing on Sunday.

Indeed, weather was even better today - and on my way to the harbour I could feel the wind already at 11. Preparing the boat for departure took a bit but we left the harbour just before 12. My goal was to sail to Rosättra, to check on my workshop there - and Glypto which I renovate inside.

Most of the way I had southerly, half-wind of moderate strength so we could sail under full sails. Average was 5 knots with peeks around 6 knots - really nice indeed. Down in the channel to Rosättra I had to drop sails halfway since the wind died or was blowing from random directions.

As always under this bridge I wonder if the mast will clear the bridge. It did this time.

We went on engine to the harbour where I took the free place. Jim apparently is sailing as Kaika was not in her slip.

I’ve check my workshop and went on a walk around the boatyard and Rosättra shipyard. Not many people at this time of day.

Back on Meritaten I’ve made myself a lunch, smoke a pipe and prepared the boat for departure. As it happens often now the wind was strong here and was pushing the boat into the berth - we had some difficulties in leaving the place back on engine - my boat does not listen to the rudder when backing and propeller is very poor for backward thrust. With engine full-ahead flank we’ve managed finally to leave and turn, without damaging multi-million crown boats in vicinity.

All the way back through the channel we were going on the engine - the wind was moderate to strong but directly into the face. Sailing against the wind in this narrow channel would take hours (I’ve tried that last year when I had the engine failure here) so relying on diesel power was my choice here. Slow but easy we were going 2 knots all the way to Norrtäljeviken where I could finally rise the sails.

I was hoping for comfortable ride home on the half-wind but unfortunately the wind shifted from South to South-West so we were beating all the way home against the wind. Anyhow the average was 4-5 knots so not bad. Occasional squalls had make the ride even more interesting - showing which parts of inventory were not properly fastened by throwing them onto cabin sole when the boat was leaning to the side.

Around 18:00 we were approaching Norrtäljehamn, all the way under sails. Inside the harbour there was almost no wind so approach on engine was easy. Thomas was at his wooden motorboat and waited for me to help with docking. We had a small chat, I folded sails and prepared Meritaten for sleep in her dock until the next time.

The day was perfect so on the way home I indulged myself with a pint (or two) in my favourite harbour pub. Summer!

Sailing in Arholma Archipelago

Weather forecast was not promising but after only few days of rest at home we decided to move onto the boat.

As with most of our family-sailing events: it’s no use to plan departure early in the day. Our top-score is to be ready for sailing at earliest noon. After all - it supposed to be fun, not military camp.

We packed ourselves and appeared in the NSS harbour around afternoon on Monday. The plan was to sail all the way to Norrtäljeviken’s end, to Flaten. On this NSS club-owned island we usually spend a night before we move further into the Archipelago.

The sky did not look friendly thou so instead we decided to spend the night onboard and cast away early next day. Indeed there was a thunderstorm circling the whole night around us but, as very often before, it never really reached us.

Next day the sky looked almost the same - with rain clouds all around - with the difference that there was almost no wind! Heck, at 11:00 we decided to go anyway so Yanmar-san got to work most of the way. There were few times that we could rise sails and sail a bit but most of the time it was no wind. We reached Flaten at 15:00, not bad for mostly motor-sailing.

There were just a handful of other boats there. I took a dinghy and explored the surrounding shallows with my daughter.

No wind for the rest of the day.

The next day was cloudy and windless. I was eager to sail further but with no wind it would be again slow progress with diesel noise so we waited. Rain showers helped keeping the deck clean.

Playing Monopoly, bathing in ice-cold sea and reading books - lazy time - made me feel eager to move. Late in the afternoon there came wind. Finally!

It took us just a while to decide - we leave!

I wanted to try a new place so we sailed to the small island, close to Arholma. According to the Hamnguiden this nature harbour is good only for Southerly winds - which we had this day and the forecast was same for the whole night. Idskär is the name - it is a small, rocky island, nature park. North part is a small lagoon, too shallow for sailboats to reach the strand but good as an anchorage.

I used my storm anchor - of a fisherman type, heavy bastard. We arrived at dawn, there was already one boat anchoring at the entrance to the lagoon. The skipper guided us into the lagoon but to my taste we were too close to the shallows and rocks - should the anchor drag we would end up on the rocks. It was also the first time I try this anchor so I was at all not sure if all will work.

The place is beautiful and well protected from Southerly wind but it is open to the Baltic sea from North. That means that any swell coming from the open sea is entering the lagoon - causing the boat to rock heavily on this shallow water.
The whole night was sleepless - I was frequently checking if we are not dragging onto the neighbour boat or onto rocks. Around 3 a.m. there was a thunderstorm with heavy wind and showers. Luckily the anchor held but I cannot call this a calm night.

The next morning we took our rubber dinghy and went exploring the lagoon.
We’ve accidentally lost our collapsible aluminium ladder into the sea but it was so ugly that I cannot force myself to regret it.
I’ll make a new one, from wood.

After late breakfast we woke-up Yanmar-san and motored to the nearby Arholma Österhamn. Since it was early afternoon there were still places in the harbour so we didn’t have to stay on anchor this time.

As before with my old Safir “Motoko” - our old “Meritaten”, at her time a big Laurinkoster boat - among modern boats looked like a dwarf!

We were running low on food so we went straight ahead to Norrhamn for lunch and shopping. Lunch was delicious - for our stomachs kept on boat-food it was a king’s meal.
With the view!

The following evening came a boat, Murena-type, just bought by Australian pair who bought her for their son - to be sailed to Island. I helped them to enter the harbour and we had some interesting conversations.

It’s interesting (and quite sad) that Swedish sailors usually do not assist when other boat is entering the harbour. Of course - as we experienced on Idskär - when they see that the skipper is not sure about conditions in the place (like I was) they emerge from their boats and give a hand but in normal conditions, in the marina, they do not. Instead they just continue their stuff, observing from the side. Maybe they assume, as a sea nation, that all is easy and believe that other skipper does not need - or will be offended - by offered help in calm conditions.
Well, that's sad and much in contrary to what I was taught in Poland: we were told to always assist other sailboats. It’s much appreciated by the coming skipper! Even if not needed - and in most cases indeed not needed - at least it is a kind of warm welcome. And conversation starter.

In case of this Australian pair I could clearly see that they needed help - not knowing the rules in this place and being uncertain where to land. And thus, after landing, we exchanged our stories and nobody was “offended” by helping hand.

The next day, on Friday, weather forecast was promising Northerly wind which will give us broad reach through Lidöfjärden and half-wind in Norrtäljeviken. Since our vacations come to the end we took this opportunity to sail all the way back to Norrtälje.

I’ve decided to run only on full genua - to avoid drama of mainsail handling in broad reach. After all - it is family sailing, speed is of not much importance. Even on just genua we were going 4 knots most of the time.

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We’ve left around 11:00 and were entering NSS harbour 5 hours later, with perfect weather and moderate wind. Thanks god SMHI weather forecast was not true today - it was supposed to be raining here!