Norway to Ireland 2011: The West Coast of England

Four years ago this week, I had the adventure of a lifetime. Two weeks on a square-rigged ship sailing from Norway to Ireland. I kept a journal, but never published the entire thing and now I want to close the gap. If you're just visiting for the first time, please read the entries that precede this to get the full story.

Day 10   Tuesday               June 28, 2011

Another 18 hours and too much to tell. I’m going to forget something.

Out on the bowsprit

Last night on watch we started setting sail again. First, four staysails starting in the bow. For the first and maybe only time I went out on the bowsprit to untie the sizing on two of the three staysails. That’s the most pleasant place to be on a sailing ship I think. After the staysails it was up in the rig to let out the store stump, the store mers, and the fore stump. This may have been the most satisfying hour of the whole journey. This was now about 10 p.m. and the sun was setting on the port side. It was absolutely gorgeous and I was totally at ease. There were five of us and we felt as if the ship belonged to us. What a rush!

Sunset under sail

I forgot to mention that before we touched the sails, we had to brace all of the yards. Now that’s hard work. We moved all 15 yards to a port tack in about 45 minutes. That requires uncoiling about 50 lines, pulling like animals on 1/3 of them, and then coiling them back up. You don’t stay cold for long with that kind of action.

I was so sore when I hit the sack that I thought I’d be asleep in minutes, but not so. First the 12-4 watch gathered in the companionway for a chat (they should have been on deck!) and then Christian decided to open a bag of cheez doodles in the bunk below me and munch on them one at a time while watching a movie. Ah, the joys of the banjer!

During the night the 12-4 watch decided to have a songfest while working (?) and that was annoying. Have to speak about that with Henrik & Nils in the morning. Maybe they can kick some ass for us tomorrow! There’s a strong feeling on our watch that we have the best teamwork and produce the best results of the three watches.

The morning dawned sunny and sparkling. We’re now fully in the Atlantic, although the western coast of England is still in sight and we discovered that the 4-8 watch had put us on a starboard tack. The big question on everyone’s mind is how long we’ll sail before going back to power and whether we’ll get to Waterford Wednesday night or Thursday during the day. We’re approximately 100 miles south of the Irish coast right now. For the first hour of the morning watch we were at the white board again with our third lesson in tacking a full-rigged ship. We learned that we will do another tack later today and now that sail is set, it’s an “all hand on deck” operation, just as it will be during the races.

At our request we also got more stories about maritime history. We learned about the astonishing inhumanity of the slave ship captains and more details about the training ship Denmark. Both Henrik and Nils are Danish and Nils trained on the Denmark. These guys are amazingly experienced sailors with fascinating life histories. Henrik actually has a wife and children in Thailand and hopes to start a diving business there when he’s done sailing.

After lunch we did the tacking. First, the Captain gave his “Clas’s Corner” daily update. He said that Waterford won’t allow ships to enter the port on Thursday so we’ll be coming in at high tide late on Wednesday afternoon. On the approach tomorrow, I guess we’ll be getting the ship ready, part of which is polishing all the brass fittings on board, and there’s a lot of it. And we paid for the pleasure!

Of course, everyone is salivating about the Guinness and Jameson that awaits. There’s talk today also about parties on all the other ships. It’s probably a good idea we’re coming in early so we have time to party and then recover before we have to travel again for hours. I learned about a better Irish whiskey than Jameson, but I can’ remember it now. Starts with a T; I’ll have to have Allan write it down.

Lines for the braces

Back to the tacking. Actually, it was jibing, tacking with the wind, or to put it bluntly, ass of the boat first! To do that, all of the lee lines had to be slacked and the lines for the lee braces coiled in a special way so that they will run free and not get tangled during the jibe. Then it’s haul away on the main braces, the mizzen braces, and the fore braces in that order, all of it on whistle signals.   it in my hands. I imagine doing it for the races would get you calloused before they were over.

Clewlines and buntlines

The ship is too big and the deck has two levels so the AB in charge can’t be seen by most of the crew. For primarily trainees who’ve only been together for six days and only done the exercise twice, we did pretty good, I think. I didn’t wear gloves this time and I could really feel it in my hands. I imagine doing it for the races would get you calloused before they were over.


Next Up: Arrival in Waterford, Ireland

To see all of the photos from my adventure, visit: Oslo,  Oslo to Waterford, Waterford and Dublin 2011.

Norway to Ireland 2011: The English Channel

Even though it's been some weeks since my last post, I'm going to continue to publish the journal that I kept on my Tall Ships adventure last summer. This episode is at about the halfway point in the voyage when we went through the English Channel.

Day 7     Saturday              June 25, 2011

True to the captain’s predictions yesterday, we should be entering the English Channel by nightfall today. We’ve been steaming for almost 24 hours now and the combination of our speed and the fact that the waves are coming right into our bow (we’re only 20 degrees off the wind) has made for an incredibly active ride. We woke this morning to rain and heavy seas so the first part of the morning watch was spent learning to make a Bensel, another way to make a bight in a rope that's different from the splicing we learned yesterday.

After mid-morning, the Captain passed the word that we should change the braces (in spite of the rain) in preparation for a coming wind shift and resumption of sailing once we pass Dover in the channel. That meant our watch needed to slack a couple dozen lines, haul away on 9 braces and re-coil all the lines.  It took about an hour and was really hard work, but quite satisfying to get praise for having done it well.

The 8-12 watch in the English Channel

Lunch was heartily welcomed by everyone, both for a break from the morning’s work and because everyone was famished.  Other days lunch has been followed by immediate napping, but today most of us went right back on deck. Water was now covering the deck on the lee side of the boat and the sea was coming over the bow. The lookout had been shifted from the bow to the quarterdeck to avoid being swept overboard and safety lines were now set on the main deck to allow sure footing across the open deck. I shot a couple of short movies both from the quarterdeck and bakken.

The heavy weather continued into the evening and through most of the night. I had lookout at 2100 hours and about halfway through the hour we encountered fog which also lasted all night. The 2^nd Mate (Steiner) gave us a look at the ship’s ASI which thoroughly convinced us that we had zero chance of being run down at night, even in fog.

Day 8     Sunday                 June 26, 2011

The only weather change in the morning was that the sea was calmer, which also meant that the wind had dropped. Great. So far we’ve sailed only two of the five days and motored the rest. She’s a beautiful boat and all and I’m on vacation, but all of us, including the crew, came to sail!

I had the helm for the first hour of the watch and the only excitement there was when the Captain asked me to change course by 15 degrees to avoid a fishing boat “going in circles in front of us.” However, as soon as I gave up the wheel, we were directed to set three sengestagseils, one at each mast. Now we’re getting somewhere!

Except as soon as we tied them off and coiled the lines, we were given buckets of soap and water, and brushes, and told to wash the deck. Seriously!! Actually, with the fresh breeze yesterday for about 18 hours, we shipped a ton of salt water and the salt isn’t good for the varnished floors below decks, so we scrubbed and rinsed the entire main deck.

Watching Windjammer in the banjer

I should give a mention to Jan Petter Hanson, an Oslo filmmaker who works for Munch Films. He and his daughter are along for the ride and he’s filming and interviewing everyone for a piece that will be shown on Norwegian television in the fall. I doubt I’ll get to see it, but it shows the tremendous love and respect that the Norwegians have for the Christian Radich and her two companion vessels, the Statsraad Lehmkuhl and the Soerlandet, and I love that. Yesterday, he had a crowd around his laptop because he’s got bits of the movie Windjammer on his hard drive and lots of behind the scenes footage. I feel like I’m in heaven!

Day 9     Monday               June 27, 2011

I’ve only got about 20 minutes before we go on evening watch, but I just realized that I haven’t written anything since this time yesterday. We had some excitement this afternoon when I’ve normally made my entries.

Penzance Bay

Penzance Bay lies on the south coast of England just east of Land’s End, England’s westernmost spit of land. I’m told that Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pirates of Penzance was inspired by this bay, at least the name. Don’t know if that’s true, but I’ll go with it. The officer of the watch (Steinar, I think) took a little detour into the bay to take us close to a small island topped by a magnificent castle the name of which I haven’t yet heard. While making this side trip, a Sea King helicopter flew by a couple of times and we joked that it was probably Prince William at the controls.

During the morning watch we got another soaking with some spectacular lightning and thunderclaps. This turn in the weather required that we take in what little sail was yet flying, the three last staysails.  We went to bed last night with a good bit of sail up (although it wasn’t doing much), but overnight the wind died and the other watches took in all but the three staysails.

Before the rain we had a lesson on tacking since that’s what we’ll need to do on the run up the west coast of England on the last leg to Waterford. Making a tack in a full-rigged ship is about an hour’s work, most of it in preparation. The actual change in the position of the ship takes about 15 minutes.

Nils then told us a couple of sailing stories from the annals of the British and Danish navies. One was about a shipwreck in the Scilly Islands in which an English widow removed the gold teeth and fillings from the drowned sailors that washed up on shore and the other was about a Danish shipbuilding company which planted trees to be used in the construction of a ship for the king that matured in 2005 after the government had forgotten about them in the ensuing decades.

Next up: The West Coast of England

Norway to Ireland 2011: Dolphins in the North Sea

Day 5     Thursday             June 23, 2011

It was much calmer overnight than the previous night so I actually got some rest. I think I got six hours, although I did wake up during the watch change at 4am because they turned on the lights in our banjer, not theirs, and they were noisy.

Pieter Bellen at the helm

My first watch assignment today was at the helm. Not only that, but I forgot to mention that the captain turned off the engine last evening while I was on lookout so we were now completely under sail. No more motor sailing for several days. Yes! That meant that I was asked to steer by the wind gauge, not the compass. Trying to keep the ship between 55 and 60 degrees off the wind is actually quite challenging. Under 50 degrees and you’re in danger of tacking involuntarily. Not a good thing.

Back to school again with Henrik after my stint at the helm. We learn that we have six sails to take aloft before we make Waterford. These are sails that would have been easier to rig in port, but circumstances didn’t allow. That means bending them on while underway. Today we’re going to bend on the kryss and store bramstagseils (mizzen and main topgallant staysails).  This work is kind of a cross between sewing and rock climbing. Basically, hanging onto a shroud or the mast with one hand and threading a needle with the other. I enjoyed the company of a  17-year-old Finn named Olli whom I learned earlier is a volunteer, not part of the permanent crew, and just joined the ship two weeks ago. He’s an amazingly nimble fellow.

By the end of the day we’ll have 13 of the 27 sails set. With the wind freshening this afternoon, we should be doing fairly good speed by evening.

Dolphins in the North Sea!

After lunch (it being a gorgeous afternoon, we spent a couple hours on deck. About 1:30 someone shouted “dolphins!” Suddenly, the foredeck was filled with about 30 people hanging over the bow with cameras. It was a wonderful moment that lasted about ½ hour. Two pair of dolphins kept jumping and diving just in front of the boat. They clearly were playing games with the ship and probably had no idea there was an audience. It was pure exhilaration for both them and us.

During the evening watch, the captain decided we had too much sail out, so the order came down to take in the store bram sail. We were averaging about 8 or 8 ½ knots all day so we were moving along at a pretty good clip. I thought it odd that this was the plan since an earlier watch had just set the same sail. Henrik asked for volunteers and the response wasn’t enthusiastic, so I raised my hand and went to get a safety harness. Handling the sails requires 6-8 people to do it efficiently and especially in a stiff breeze.

Going up was OK, although the pitching of the ship was stronger than the other times I’d been aloft.  When we reached the second platform, however, one of our number chose not to go out on the yard. The footrope on the starboard side wasn’t ideal for a tall person. I started having second thoughts myself. However, somebody had to go or this operation was going to stretch out much longer. Taking that first step onto the rope was a combination of pure adrenaline rush and absolute terror, but I managed it. Now it was necessary to get a good handhold and sync my movements with the heaving of the bow so I didn’t go over the yard—the foot rope really wasn’t deep enough for someone over 6’. Oh well. One of the Belgians, Eva, joined me on my left and the four of us were able to furl and secure the sail. I recalled my day on the ropes course with my team from work last summer and realized that this was a far greater challenge and obstacle to overcome. I was satisfied to reach he deck safely and also felt a tremendous sense of relief, even if I was 20 minutes late for lookout!

Day 6     Friday   June 24, 2011

The only way I know what day it is to look at the previous entry in this log. Otherwise, it doesn’t matter to life on the ship. It’s hard to believe that after just 2 ½ days at sea, I have packed away my other life into a little box for safekeeping. Little of it is relevant to daily life on the Christian Radich. You and your watch mates work together, eat together, sleep together, and have time off together. This happened by circumstance obviously, not by choice, but it’s OK and is quite easily and quickly accepted. It would be difficult to remain aloof and alone on the ship and if you tried , it would most likely get to be very uncomfortable.

I had my first shower this morning and it was delightful. However, it was unlike any I’ve taken before, because the ship was rolling and pitching constantly so cleaning with one hand was interesting. I waited until this morning because I couldn’t locate my towel for two days. This is the third time on the trip that I’ve not been able to find something in my belongings and it’s frustrating. I hope that it doesn’t happen too many more times!

The wind is waning this morning. Yesterday we clipped along at over 8 knots, but we’re down under 5 knots right now. Still headed southwest with a WNW wind. We’ll find out after lunch when we will reach the Channel and what the weather forecast for tonight and tomorrow.

Since yesterday evening we’ve always had at least one oil rig in sight, sometimes more. We actually had to sail around a large cluster of them during the night.

This morning we had Henrik give us another lesson in tending the sails and the braces depending on the ship’s angle to the wind. We’re still sailing close-hauled, but hopefully we’ll get wind on the beam at some point and of course we’ll have to change everything when we approach port in Waterford: take in all sails and square up the yards.

The rest of our morning watch was a bust as the wind continued to drop. By the time we finished lunch and met with the captain, it sounded more and more like we’d be going motor sailing sooner than expected, both so that we could keep on schedule and also because the wind was shifting back to the SW so we’d be trying to sail directly into it, a feat that’s physically not possible. Indeed, while we were relaxing, reading, and napping, the 12-4 watch pulled in all of the square sails.

I mentioned the food once. It’s quite remarkable what two people can do. The first night we had whitefish with an onion baste. The next night we had beef stroganoff; last night meatballs, and tonight pork chops. The bread is all fresh and wonderful and the side dishes excellent. Fresh fruit, coffee, and tea 24/7, and good desserts. This afternoon we had hot chocolate and brownies.

By the time the evening watch began, the wind had freshened, but we were done sailing because the 4-8 watch had taken in all the square sails as I said. We were back under power and the boat was starting to behave like a bucking horse or a carnival ride again, depending on the metaphor you prefer.

I had the helm at 2100 hours and although it wasn’t hard to keep the ship on course, the pressure on the rudder was intense and after an hour your arms really start to feel some strain. It’s an amazing feeling of awe and admiration, though, to be piloting such an elegant vessel through such an elemental process.

While I was gone the rest of the watch were getting a lesson in rope splicing, something I’d never tried. I was able to catch up to them when I returned and have yet another skill to take home with me. All the while we worked the ropes we were passing oil rigs in the night. I counted 17 visible between the C. Radich and the eastern horizon.