Passage Report: 97

Sahula

"Pan Pan Pan..."

"Pan, Pan Pan, this is the yacht Sahula, sierra, alpha..."

"Sahula, this is coastguard, your position, please..."

Rain, spray, rough, confused, seas, Sahula was at the mercy of tide and winds, drifting towards the sand banks and shore of Wangerooge Island and the Jade River estuary of the German Bight.

Without assistance, Sahula voyage would end.

Cruising is beholden to weather. Coastal cruising more so. The report showed rain and NW'ly winds, moderate then abating - a fast sail to Norderney Island (45nm).

A sailor is reliant on Reports and intuition. Both are sorely tested in the notorious North Sea and the German Bight.

Early morning voyages usually are in calm conditions. Sahula caught the tide, down the Elbe, remaining just outside the shipping channel and turned for Norderney on calm seas.

Rain clouds, grey, black swept the horizon. A westerly sea built during the morning; premising a change.

Skipper pondered turning back. The weather front brought unexpected, strong south-westerlies. Sahula under reduced sail, double reefed main and furled headsail, lunged, spray sweeping, towards the south.

Wind increased to 25 - 30 knots. Sahula slowed; rather than risk a night sail, Skipper opted for shelter in the German Bight's, Jade River.

Rough, confused, shallow water, seas sweeping the deck, raised risks in lowering the mainsail. It could stay till calmer waters.

Sea emergencies are measured in seconds over a fast moving, litany.

Tanya (engine) on, Sahula turned. High winds ensured the headsails could not fully furl. Sheets (ropes to sail) thrashed, instantly knotting.

Engine panel, red lights flashing, alarms screaming - temperature gauge: urgent - overheating. Push the black button. Sahula stopped - adrift.

Distant breakers seemed ominously close.

Sail free, turn, turn: Sahula did not respond. High winds, large seas, drove Sahula onto a lee shore. A sailor's nightmare had begun.

Help would need time.

"Pan, Pan, Pan...this is the yacht Sahula..."

Seconds passed: "Sahula, this is the coast guard... your position please..."

Glasses, spray covered, Skipper strained to read the GPS position. The "new" VHF microphone cord would not reach the cockpit.

" two ships are coming to your assistance, they will be there soon..."

Skipper's relief was palpable.

It strained belief that it was possible Sahula was on a long, slow drift to disaster. Fate was in the hands of competent others.

"Sahula, this is the coast guard, our vessel will put a line aboard, until a smaller ("SAR") boat will tow you to a safe harbour..."

"Mellum," is a large, multi-purpose, rescue ship designed to assist large commercial ships. She adroitly manouvered to enable a line aboard Sahula.

The other ship, a large pilot ship, stood off - a second line of defence.

A rocket fired, piercing the mainsail top; the thin white line was unreachable. Sahula danced away denying other skillfully thrown lines.

"Mellum" came closer, rolled - a saviours "metal wall" -Sahula's bow bounced off (damaging the metal bowspit) - a line was secure. Sahula was safe - held on a long line.

The breakers were denied.

"Voermann Steffen," a DGzRS (German "lifeboat" service) sped from Wilhemshaven into rough seas. Soon alongside "Mellum," she transferred the tow line. Sahula was enroute to a safe harbour.

Unbeknown to Skipper, there was concern that, not being visible (due to cockpit covers), he may be overboard. "Mellum" returned and a black helicopter came in close.

Sahula was manouvered alongside a pontoon in Hooksiel, a small Jade River port. She was safe.

"Steffen" moored on the opposite side. Skipper, enjoyed coffee aboard and thanked her skipper and crew.

Skipper, exhausted, bruised, mentally and physically, sort a long nights rest.

Next morning: "...this is Sahula Cruising..." An officer of the rescue coordination authority, seeking information about Sahula, read the blog. Skipper offered coffee aboard.

German hospitality knows no bounds; a tour of Wilhemshaven, a home visit (superb garden), dinner - ensured Skipper was on the mend.

Tanya's problem was resolved with a new impellor and reversing the water pump plate cover (opposite side was worn). So little, causing so much, in so short a time.

Skipper resolves to make changes aboard Sahula, and in how crew handles similar emergencies - lessons learnt.

The damage to Sahula was minor; irrelevant to ensuring a safe outcome.

Norderney (Friesen island, beach resort) provided a welcome marina (and a hot bath), after a short day, motoring into calm seas.

Skipper (and his Australian family) sincerely thanks the German sea rescue groups: Coast Guard, DGzRS and the pilot ship, for, so skilfully, ensuring Sahula's safety.

Next Report: Dalziel to Amsterdam: Mast Up Route through Holland's canals.

Best

David
11/09/2013

Passage Report: 98   
Sahula
Jaded, Rejuventated to Amsterdam

Cruising life is not for the feint hearted. Cruisers are adventurers; risk is a part. Wounds: physical, psychological, are toll for engaging - time the exilir.

Sahula returned to the Jade River estuary, wary, trusting to a calm, North Sea.

"...in an onshore wind, waves break in entrance... do  not enter above Force 4... Sahula edged in towards Norderney.

It was calm. Sahula entered - slowly - markers had changed - the bouys followed the shore - tourists waved.

"...your friend in Sea Rescue has just phoned as you came in...to check you were here..." (Harbour Master).

Sahula stayed two days R&R. Norderney (Island) is a tourist town.

"... your friend asked if you could leave the back way...(to Dalziel) what is your draft..."

Skipper noticed a small hole where the bowspit had lifted the deck. Crossing calm, tidal, mud flats, was appealing.

"...yes, we have a yacht going that way tomorrow...leaving... before high tide (3m)..." (Norderney Sailing School).

"Wiffies" (rammed tree branches) mark the shallows. 

Sahula "ploughed" soft mud, meandering bouy to bouy across the expanses of an estuary desert. Large ferries passed, impossibly, by.  

Dalziel offered a welcome marina. 

Sahula entered the lock into Holland's "Staande Mastroute" (mast up) canals to Amsterdam. 

Blunt bowed barges passing, ducks, geese, swans, verdent green, yellow fields, ancient sentinel windmills, erect modern wind turbines, red brick farms, spires, towns - lifting, swinging, parting, bridges - waving cyclists - along a watery ribbon to Groningen. 

Three days, alongside an ancient, inner city, stone wharf, under autumn trees - busy markets, bustling university students, bikes, bikes, bikes, cobbled streets, reeking Hanseatic history.

Art museum features works of rising Chinese (sexually frustrated) youth (every "thing" is "art"?) and "Ploeg" (plow) group - locally based, impressionist, modern, colourists - Skipper relishes "R & R.”

Ship museum records Holland's marine evolution from blunt bowed, load carriers, trading internally, to faster, sharp bowed Brigs, Barks, Schooners trading internationally.

News of Atlantic rescue of German friends on "Nada Brahma," (50 foot wooden, motor sailer, enroute to Brazil), in 50 knot, August, gale, heightens Skipper's resolve and caution.

"...you have a problem with the North Sea..." - Dutch sailor. 


Skipper reads "Motor Cycle Diaries of Che Guevara" - "...there is nothing lonelier than adventure..." - of his South America travels. 


"...go to Makkum...for Sahula's repairs..." (English friend).

German traveller provides Skipper with Friesland, canal chart to Makkum via Leewarden and Harlingen (off "mast up route" in Van Harinxmakanaal) "...enjoyed meeting you...I will send photos..." 

Dokkum, Leewarden (berth, inner town park), beautiful, historical, towns to Harlingen (HWSV marina 15e), seaport for the Waddenzee (seawaters inland of offshore Friesland islands). 

Large, majestic, sailing (single (brig) or two masted (bark), some square rigged (schooner)) barges (chartered by students), under full sail, accompany Sahula from Harlingen, towards the Afshuitdijk lock, into the Ijsselmeer (inland sea) to Makkum. 

A mast "forest" greets Sahula entering Makkum estuary. 

"...a lot of Germans leave their yachts..."

Sahula seeks Gebr. van Elkhuizen shipyard (www.noordkaper.com) (info@noordkaper.com) 

"...welcome, staff will assist entry to a berth...how can we help you..."

Excellent facilities, friendly, efficient, management and staff, high quality workmanship, "Yanmar" mechanics, a "one stop shop" await - Sahula is lifted and moved to rest for some two weeks to enable repairs.

Symbolicly, the sun shines - a new bowspit, sails checked and repaired (UK de Vries), new batteries, battery charger replaced, deck repainted, feathering propellor overhauled, etc, etc - shortening the ever lengthening, "winter" list. 

Skipper bicycles into the country; walks, sketches town and sea scapes - enters Dutch life in a small ancient place.

 

 

 

 

 

Skipper considers wintering at the shipyard but the Schengen visa issue (three months) determines returning to Ipswich.

Crew comes from England, time to leave - Sahula sails the Ijsselmeer into the Markermeer to Hoorn (Binnehaven, 15 e) and Amsterdam (Sixhaven 20 e).

October gales, rain and cold, recurring, repeating, rolling, Atlantic "lows," confine Sahula, frustrating Skipper. Crew returns home. 

Local friends, galleries (Van Gogh, Rijks); Skipper soaks a unique city and awaits the weather gods judgement.

Next Report: Amsterdam to Ipswich
Best
David
Amsterdam
16th October, 2013

Passage Report: 96

In Search of a different Blue: Danish Art Colonies: Skagen, Kerteminde, Faaborg

The artist's "eye," reveals a peoples cultural sense or mood, its context, then and now - creating visual history - of nature or the human condition - seeing beauty, in the obvious or seemingly impossible.

Through art, the traveller, enhances the experience.

Skipper visits local art galleries with each opportunity. Art is a golden thread through the circumnavigation.

Cruising the Baltic, Helsinki (Finland), Tallinn (Estonia), Gothenburg (Sweden), archived superb collections of each nation's art.

An artist learns from others works. Talent stimulates talent - appreciation.

"...its the light...its different in northern Europe..."

"...its a different blue...the clouds more windswept, grey...the shallow sea, short, more sombre..."

Baltic artists visited Paris during the French impressionist period. However, their art was little appreciated. It was of a different mileu. Colour under another sun.

Skipper, first encountered this change in a private gallery in Rendsberg (Kiel Canal, Germany). Exhibited works of North German Realists (inter alia, Lars Moller, Ulf Petermann, Till Warwas), landscaped (plein air) the coastal grey - sky blue, but no impressionist colour: gallery owner "...they sell well..."

Two summer cruises, Skipper sees as they see.

"...a must is Skagen... "

Winds last summer directed Sahula south. This year from Gothenburg, Sahula, impatiently, broad reached to Skagen, a fishing port near the tip of Denmark's Jutland Peninsula. It's where the whimiscal Katteget meets the temptuous, North Sea. As then, today, it is a remote place.

In the 1800's, it was the small fishing community, coast and sea, that attracted artists. They had freedom, to paint, interpret, distant from the controlling city:

"...immense stretches of heath covered with grasses and lichen, high dunes and sandhills, desolate, windswept coasts, dramatic contrast between the forbidding north shore and the gentler coastline...(other side)... and an unhindered view of the sky, where the colours, cloud formations and light are constantly changing..." (Danish Art Colonies, p 13).

In addition, "... the friendly, local, population...where accessible to the figure painters...hostelry... company excellent...food was good and cheap..."

It was a refuge from classical training in the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.

Among others (Viggo Johansen, Kark Madsen, Carl Locher, Laurits Tuxen ...), came Michael Ancher (1848 -1927):

"...you arrived up there and wandered around an untouched and peculiar world. The noise of the world was like a distant whisper..."

Ancher married Anna, a local hoteliers daughter (and accomplished artist) and residents of the village. Her father's hotel and their home became magnets for visiting artists.

Holger Drachmann (painter, writer, poet, who also married and lived locally) looked for "...the great loneliness in the encounter with great nature..."

In 1882, Peder Kroyer (1851-1909) - with wife Marie (a painter, designer), became a Skagen resident. Already "...considered one of his generations greatest artistic talents..." His works and those of Ancher, were to leave an indelible mark on the Skagen "school" and Danish art.

With many visiting artists, a growing fame and successful exhibitions, artists donated works which founded the Skagen Museum, inaugurated in 1928. Today, it includes the original hotel saloon where artists met and the Ancher and Drachman homes, preserved as during the artists lives.

Website: www.skagensmuseum.dk

email: museum@skagensmuseum.dk

It is a superb collection, providing a unique insight into 1880 -1930, Danish art and an 1800's fishing village.

Skipper wandered the historic town and its heath and beach environments. Today, Skagen remains a fishing port, industrialised to service the local and huge atlantic, trawlers. If authenticity is needed, the inevitable odour wafts over parts of the town.

In Skagen, Skipper learnt about other Danish Art Colonies, at Faaborg and Kerteminde. Both are on Fyn Island on Sahula's route south.

Tanya (engine), butted Sahula into a light sea later rough. Skipper motor sailed through the Lille Belt (strait) towards Faaborg, but with headwinds by mid afternoon, Skipper opted to broad reach to the northern most tip of Fyn ("Fyn Hovd") and Korhavn anchorage; towards Kerteminde. Fate was shining.

Korhavn is a painters place. A bay, harbouring flocked wildlife, encirculed by the high, brown, green, cliffs of much of coastal Denmark.

Funen artists painted at Korhavn. Like Skagen, they sought its marine, remoteness and light.

Kerteminde ("minde" - mouth of the Kerte fjord) was a base. Sahula berthed at the town harbour wall. Like Skagen, an 1800's fishing town of cobbled streets between colourful (mainly yellow) houses and spires.

 

Six artists, three men (Peter Hansen (1858-1928), Johannes Larsen (1867- 1961), Fritz Syberb (1862-1939)) three women (Alhed Larsen (1872-1927), Anna Syberg (1870- 1914), Chrisine Sweane (1876-1961)) comprise the core of the Kerkeminde and Faaborg art colonies.

Unlike Skagen which was essentially a summer colony, Funen artists resided all year.

Johannes Larsen, wealthy millowner, prolific artist, described Kerteminde: "...probably the most beautiful little town in the world, as it lay inside a bay by the mouth of the fjord, turned towards the Belt and the sunrise..."

His family home and gardens have been transformed into the Johannes Larsen Museum. The mill is nearby.

 

 

 

Its collection is superb. Larsens numerous works in vibrant impressionist colour, portray his love of birds and the coast; Vyberg, the village and fisherman, and families lives.

See: www.johanneslarsenmuseet.dk

A strong SW'ly drove Sahula south into the islands of the Store Belt, through the Svenborg Sund (channel).

By late afternoon a headwind required hard working, Tanya to push through the short, steep, white, to Faaborg. The fishing harbour wall provided sanctuary.

 

 

Similar to Skagen, Kerteminde; Faaborg is a historic fishing village of cobbled streets and yellow, white houses.

 



 

Faaborg Museum initially, housed the art collection of Mads Rasmussen, a wealthy, local, conserve, manufacturer. Encouraged by Funen colony artists, the museum was opened in 1910, in his summer apartment. Architect, Carl Petersen, subsequently, designed a museum building itself, an architectual art work. While representing core Funen colony painters it includes the works of some 50 artists.

See: www.faaborgmuseum.dk

With a north westerly, Sahula reaches fast, for Kiel. An anchorage over night and into the Holtenau Kiel Canal lock to Rendsberg. It is likely to be the final Sahulian sail on the Baltic. Marvellous memories of a Scandinavian summer and friends, flood in.

Every voyage has space places, Rendsberg is ideal for time out. Halfway along the canal, a small historic town with a friendly marina. Skipper restocks, refuels and rests.

Skipper visits the local gallery where earlier visits raised interest in the Northern European Realists and Baltic art. The circle turns.

For the fourth time, Sahula enters the final lock at Brunsbittel to exit the Canal into the Elbe River's racing tide, to Cuxhaven and North Sea.

Early evening; Sahula berths at Cuxhaven marina. Skype links Skipper to daughters and brings news of Australian government changing. Skipper ponders the good and the bad of being so remote from home.

Next Report: Elbe to Holland's Mast Up Route to Amsterdam.

Best

David

7/09/2013