Safe in the Sound?

Friday morning. Up bright and earIy to head for the bridge. Sleeping on the Folkboat had been much more comfortable this year. I had taken the trouble to bring two full-size flat sheets, which I tucked in all the way round the saloon cushions (they got a bit rust stained, but the marks eventually faded with repeated applications of elbow grease and noxious chemicals). We had decent pillows, and the flat open sleeping bag, and the result was very much more like a proper bed. I think I’ve mentioned how much I hate sleeping in a slithery synthetic sarcophagus. We also abandoned the idea of sleeping cross-wise across the boat, as there were too many bumps and ridges between the cushions. The only snag is that making and un-making the bed each day are duties which are quite clearly allocated to the Mate on board any competently-skippered boat, or so I am informed. I haven’t yet mastered the art of crawling around inside a Folkboat without cracking my head on seemingly unnecessary (although beautifully varnished) bits of wood every 10 seconds.

Anyway, refreshed and quite chirpy despite the cranial contusions, I set out first thing in search of a weather forecast. The news was pretty good: SW 4-5 in the morning, decreasing 3-4 later. There were still a few thundery showers around, though. Having put the reef in at sea yesterday, it was a bit of an untidy mess, so we had taken it out on arrival at Neuhof so we could flake the sail neatly. Looking out across the sound from the marina this morning we could see a number of yachts, and nobody seemed to have a reef in. We would be staying in sheltered waters all day, and with the wind expected to drop we decided to start out with full sail and see how it went.

Yet again, we allowed far too much time to get to the bridge. I suppose you get more confident about your timing if you sail that way regularly, but the bridge opening time is very short, and it’s a dreadful inconvenience if you miss it. Combine that with the Skipper’s natural caution and pessimism, and you get an hour of sailing little triangles round an increasingly crowded bay hemmed in by shallow patches and eel nets. (I can understand the Skipper’s point of view, though. A few years ago he had become excessively blasé about business travel, and one day sat tapping away at his laptop in Frankfurt airport until just before departure time for a day trip to Edinburgh. Unfortunately they had changed the Gate, and it’s a Very Big airport. This is what’s now officially known as a schon weg moment.*)

We noticed a few boats going through the bridge with their mainsail up. The Skipper views this as showing off, and therefore most unseamanlike. In any case it would be unwise in the Folkboat, given the vastly greater power of the sail compared to the engine, unless there was practically no wind. (Panicky thought, much too late, just as the bridge is opening: OMG! Did we check the petrol tank?)

Feeling quite expert now as we motored through, we headed confidently for the little side exit from Stralsund harbour, marked by a couple of cardinals. We got the sails up, and headed downwind towards the Barhöf channel. Just ahead of us, a chap sailing on his own was bowling along nicely with his sails goose winged, everything perfectly balanced. We tried to follow suit, but it didn’t seem quite as easy as it looked, and I found myself constantly tinkering. We were making quite good progress, but getting a little weary of downwind sailing. Something a little more exhilarating might be more fitting end to our sailing season, we agreed.

Looking round, we could see a couple of menacing clouds poised atop their vertical dark grey columns of torrential rain like sitting hens. One of them, lurking just inland from Stralsund, looked as if we might be in its path. We decided it was time to head back to Altefähr and start getting the boat tidied. Tacking back down the Sound, the wind began to stiffen, and we were cracking along nicely. We had been watching the squall, and began to believe it would miss us, and indeed we hardly got rained on at all. However, we had seriously underestimated the size of the area where the strong winds generated by this little storm would be felt. I commented that it seemed hardly worth putting in a reef when we were so nearly home. Barely had I finished speaking when suddenly poor little Haltlos was on her ear, and it was clear we had to get those sails down.

Easier said than done. The problem was the jib. We let it fly, but it seemed certain to get wrecked by the wind long before I would be able to get it down. I tried to go forward, but with the sheets whipping about everywhere and the sail itself liable to take a preemptive swipe at me the Skipper decided it was too dangerous. I wondered later (months later, in fact) if, given that the jib on a Folkboat is pretty small, it mightn’t have been possible to subdue it by tightening both sheets to keep the sail centred while releasing the halyard. This would make it much easier to keep the boat into wind, and would also serve to stop the sail going in the water as it came down. Don’t know if that plan would have worked – I expect I’ll get chance to find out one day. In the event, we hove to for a little think. Luck was with us, in that the wind was blowing straight down the channel towards open water. We therefore decided to let it blow us along for a bit, confidently expecting the fierce wind to drop fairly soon. This time sailing downwind was rather less dull. We flew along at about 6 kts, with the sea running behind us as well. Another attempt to get the sails down had to be abandoned as there was still too much wind, but eventually things calmed down.

I think this says it all.
Source: http://hem.spray.se/anders.sberg/swe52.htm

I went forward to get the jib away, but the Skipper seemed to be having difficulty keeping her into wind. There was much peering over the stern and revving of the outboard. Unsympathetically, I wondered aloud what could be so difficult about it. The Skipper seemed equally bemused, until the light dawned. “I had the engine in neutral, that’s why!” he announced. Well, yes, that would explain it. We finally got the canvas away, although it took me ages to get the mainsail under control and tied to the boom. I seemed to have got progressively worse at this as the week went on, but today it was almost farcical. My fingers were just too tired to tie a knot.

Perhaps surprisingly, we finished off the day with perhaps our best attempt yet at tying up in a Baltic mooring box. We have discussed it at length, and believe the method goes as follows:

The first line goes on the upwind stern post. Skipper motors up to said post and lassoes it. He then lets out this line and motors slowly forward. As soon as I can, I jump onto the pontoon and secure a bow line diagonally opposite the first. The boat is now safely immobilized. A second bow line goes on next, and the Skipper lets out the stern line to let the boat drift towards the second post and get the final line on. Then all you have to do is tinker a bit to get the boat straight, and acknowledge the applause of the assembled onlookers with a bashful little wave.

It has to be said that this business is a lot easier if there are permanent ropes from the posts to the pontoon, defining the sides of the boxes, as there are at Altefähr. This means you don’t need to worry if the boat pivots round to point across the box, as it will simply rebound off the separating rope. The weather again turned nasty once we were safely tied up, and the water was quite bumpy even in the harbour. Not sure our arrival would have looked quite so professional had we tried it half an hour later!

Reflecting on the afternoon’s performance over supper in the Greek restaurant in the pinewoods (bliss – not a herring or bratwurst within sniffing distance), the Skipper conceded that if you decide to head in to port because you’re concerned about the weather then it’s not very logical to carry on with full sail. We ought at the very least to have reefed the mainsail at that point, and should probably have taken down the sails and just motored home. Had the wind been blowing us onto the shore, the story could have taken a nasty turn. Wanting to squeeze in as much sailing as possible on our last day would have made a pretty lame excuse.

The next box in the harbour was occupied by the Folkboat that had been chartered by the couple with a baby. Philip told us they had had to abandon their holiday and leave the boat in another port on Rügen as the baby had been seasick. (Really doesn’t bear thinking about, does it?) Philip and a friend had gone to collect it (the boat, that is, not the baby), and were hit by the same squall as us. He reckoned they had about 25kts of wind for a while. The Skipper and I nodded sympathetically, but refrained from sharing too many details about our own experience.

The Skipper had earlier expressed the view that this year’s holiday wouldn’t provide the same quality of blog material as last year’s. Our greater competence and experience would make it a thoroughly enjoyable week for us, but an uneventful one which wouldn’t be very interesting to read about. Mother Nature stepped in to put us right on that one. A glance at the log book shows we were two notches further up the Beaufort scale than last year pretty much all of the time. It’s easy to look stylish on the baby slope, but it’s still hard to remember not to stick your bum out on the mogully black run. However, to strain the analogy a little further, if a low centre of gravity helps you stay on your skis, a huge lump of cast iron at the bottom of the keel is similarly handy if you’re going to take a small boat out in a Force 5!

*Already gone.