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Hanö. Friday, 19 May 2023. Up at 5.50am. Lyosha and I had already agreed to leave earlier so we could explore each evening’s destination. The constant motion, cold and damp were also making him ill, and his winter sleeping bag wasn’t warm enough.
But I had bad news. On Tuesday, we’d sailed into a cold front. Behind it comes cool weather and a light breeze, as we’d seen over the past two days. A warm front often catches up with it. From tomorrow and throughout the following week, rain and gusts to 25 knots were forecast. Today, we had to cover as much ground as we physically could, or risk getting stuck somewhere for a week.
Washed and fed on flatbread with jam, we left the island at eight. Almost no wind. We motored into it for the first six hours. Then I hoisted the sails and altered onto a deep broad reach, gaining a knot and a half.
Partway through, the chartplotter sounded a critical battery warning: 11.7V. I panicked: without the autopilot, I couldn’t handle the sails alone. I switched off every electrical load, started the engine, increased the revs and connected the domestic battery to the starter battery. Nothing helped. A couple of minutes later, the charge recovered. That evening, I discovered the bilge pump no longer worked. For the next few days, I bailed with a cut-open plastic bottle.
At 9.30pm, we berthed at the yacht club marina in Gislövs läge, near Trelleborg. The worst stop of the trip. A smell of manure. Opaque water. The electricity tripped every half-hour. Vandal-proof toilets like those on aircraft. A group of young people sat noisily on the terrace of the closed café.
79.7 miles in fourteen hours.
#passage
But I had bad news. On Tuesday, we’d sailed into a cold front. Behind it comes cool weather and a light breeze, as we’d seen over the past two days. A warm front often catches up with it. From tomorrow and throughout the following week, rain and gusts to 25 knots were forecast. Today, we had to cover as much ground as we physically could, or risk getting stuck somewhere for a week.
Washed and fed on flatbread with jam, we left the island at eight. Almost no wind. We motored into it for the first six hours. Then I hoisted the sails and altered onto a deep broad reach, gaining a knot and a half.
Partway through, the chartplotter sounded a critical battery warning: 11.7V. I panicked: without the autopilot, I couldn’t handle the sails alone. I switched off every electrical load, started the engine, increased the revs and connected the domestic battery to the starter battery. Nothing helped. A couple of minutes later, the charge recovered. That evening, I discovered the bilge pump no longer worked. For the next few days, I bailed with a cut-open plastic bottle.
At 9.30pm, we berthed at the yacht club marina in Gislövs läge, near Trelleborg. The worst stop of the trip. A smell of manure. Opaque water. The electricity tripped every half-hour. Vandal-proof toilets like those on aircraft. A group of young people sat noisily on the terrace of the closed café.
79.7 miles in fourteen hours.
#passage
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