Month: June 2025

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #6

Mosterhavn to Huftarøy to Strusshamn

If you were a follower of my blogg last year, you will remember a pic of the new bridge being built over to Sotra. Here is an update:

West side much taller. East side more than just begun.

This engineer thinks this is very impressive. The human workers are ant-sized, and yet they create such huge structures.

Kari has written all about the rest of this day’s events in facebook, so I won’t repeat, but I would like to add a few photos of the trouble-shooting now today to murder the alarm.

We have had an irritating alarm since approaching Haugesund, saying that the “AIS connection is lost”, and after a varied pause, would disappear, and AIS would come back again. Yesterday things got gradually worse and the instruments went haywire so everything had to be turned off, including the autopilot, so we were back to old-fashioned sailing and no info on MarineTraffic.
Tied up in Strusshamn, I asked Raymarine’s help pages for advice and got a long list of possible reasons, the most daunting of which was to “check all connections”. There are lots.
Having eaten an exotic meal of Heinz Beanz and diverse vegetables, (remarkably succulent and sustaining), I started checking, the easiest-to-get-at first. (I know, I learned during my graduate apprenticeship at Vauxhall Motors that you should start with the most difficult one, (that’s a long story, but very educational), but I was tired wasn’t !?). Nothing changed as each easily-accessible coupling was disconnected, inspected and re-connected. Enough for tonight.
But the brain would’t go to sleep, giving me nightmares of never finding the cause, until a flash of insight/brainwave/guess pointed to a connection under the floor to the autopilot compass. Sleep at last.
Fortified by breakfast the battle began:

A too-powerful tool was needed to disconnect (alright, wrench apart) the suspect, and there, lo!, with now-ruined hat removed, and in very bright light, were two corroded pins, and the dreaded and exasperating alarm went blissfully absent. We waited at least an hour. Still silence. Relief!

Mission accomplished!

Interestingly, it has taken ten seasons for the original sealing to leak salty moisture and cause problems.

So, next, a trip to the nearest boat-ey emporium for new bits, to be installed with tubes-full of sealant, should banish the alarms for good.

Next disaster?

Alls better,

ConnectionJohn

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #5

Tananger to Haugesund to Mosterhavn.

Kari has been much more productive in writing and photographing and publishing on her facebook page than I have in this blogg, so many of you are maybe up-to-date already, in Norwegian. I have got generous permission to reproduce some of her pictures, and use her text as inspiration for this in English

So, wednesday, 25th. It did get slightly less, and we set off under a bright blue sky:

Unfortunately, wind on the nose, so we motored all the way over a gradually less-wave’y sea and eventually arrived in Haugesund at 21:30.
Underway, Kari, who titles herself as “Fender, Second Class”, learned the process of getting the navigation system to accept a waypoint to go to, and make the boat go there. Well done! Promoted. “Navigator, Second Class” instead.
Captain did the last bit of navigating as he’d been here before.
Proceeded to the guest pontoon. Fenders out. Ropes arranged. Touchdown.
And there it was, the dreadful fate befell…… Well, not serious dreadful…. Kari tripped as she jumped ashore, fell short and into the water. Life vest inflated. Good. Ladder close by, lucky. Climb out and drip. Pause. Check health. Right knee no longer normal.
Back on board and into dry clothes. Dinner. Discussion. Expert advice seemed sensible, so a trip to A&E. An attentive and thorough doctor, (a little bit yawny as by now it was thursday) could reassure Kari that nothing was broken, just stretched in her knee, and we returned to the boat with crutches and advice to rest, and things would gradually get back to normal.
Now trying to get Kari to rest when she wants to help and learn is not so easy, but we compromise.

Rest of thursday: Rain. Wash salt out of clothes. John shopped for knee-support, then to the ship’s chandler with a deflated, sorry-looking, life vest.
Help? Of course, and an ironic “You’re not the first and will certainly not be the last!” Service procedure carried out with humour. Back to boat.

Kari the while had demoted herself back to Fender, Second Class, (not approved), and had used her skills to repair the Åsgårdstrand Seilforening pennant whose string had disintegrated, (NB, inform club’s buyer). She also nursed a swelling ring finger which had taken a bump in the ducking somehow, so the engineer on board sharpened his tools and cut the ring off. Relief!


Next day, friday 27th, promised clearance. It happened. So we left a bad-memory-place, and having bunkered diesel, motored north, hoisted sail to catch the little breeze there was and motorsailed to Mosterhavn.

Gentle breeze does’nt really fill the main. The cumulus was in streets for glider pilots.

The logg had been showing very variable speed recently, so something had obviously got entangled. Water in Mosterhavn is crystal-clear, so wetsuit and the rest was struggled into and I sank to inspect. Seagrowth in the form of thin string was the culprit. Dra ut. All clear. Hopefully correct logg-speed in future.

The skipper deserved an anchor-dram afterwards, to get blood circulation going again in his fingers. Water temp 12 degrees.
Next task: Finding out why the AIS, (position indicating system) has gone intermittent. Thats a trickier one.

Alls almost well.

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #4

From Tananger to Tananger

Yes, that’s right. Embarrassing. Frustrating.
Yesterday’s attempt to sail away to new destinations was curtailed by strong winds contra, and short, very uncomfortable waves too. Discretion being the better part of valour, we scurried back to our berth from which we had hopefully departed less than an hour earlier. (The yellow line is our track).
How do you say hello so shortly after having said goodbye?

Tomorrow is another day, or rather now, today. Wednesday. It is still blowing, slightly less, but the sun is slightly shining and the forecast is slightly promising, so there is a slight possibility that we will try again this afternoon.
Boating days disappear, that’s the frustrating thing.
Meanwhile, after coffee, a gentle tour to the shops, about twenty minutes walk away according to google maps, followed by a climb up to the top of the ridge between the harbour and the sea, to the pilot’s lookout post, and suss the sailability.

Alls well,

ImpatientJohn

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #3

From Egersund to Tananger

Saturday was a lovely sunny day with a fine breeze, and several sailing boats set off to go north, and we were among them. Unfortunately the breeze was right on the nose, so it was motoring, for nearly six hours, until we rounded Jærkyst lightbuoy and headed north east and we could sail the remaining two hours. Long day, and rather tiring as the waves, also on the nose, were short, and Josin nodded. The engine behaved impeccably, reliable as before, so that’s a worry behind us.
Tananger is obviously a popular staging post, as three of the boats from Egersund were there too, and we exchanged experiences.

Tanager guest harbour is well tucked in away from the sea, on the way you pass a very busy and large offshore base with many strange vessels specific to the North Sea Oil and Gas activity. Also this:

Is it a sailing boat? No. Is it a sailing ship? Maybe 10% ?. I’ve read about it in the technical press, but it was rather intrigued to see it in reality. The theory behind the reason that these rotating cylinders help to push the ship along is well defined and known, but I must admit that the economics seem a bit suspect. It’ll be interesting to read about experience in operation.

Today is monday, another nice sunny day contrary to the weather forecast, and Kari came on board this afternoon. I’d spent the morning tidying and cleaning and moving out of drawers and cupboard space, (one has a tendency to fill up the available space, yes?), and Kari was quickly installed and organised. Showing her around where everything was kept resulted in even more space and several things the boat gremlins had hidden from me. Welcome aboard!

It is now raining, and is forecast to continue until lunchtime tomorrow. Education time, the magic of navigation and such boaty activities.
We will make the short (hopefully)sail to Skudeneshavn about three hours away.

Alls very well.

Josin’s 2025 cruise, #2

Its been too many days since John Magnus helped me get started again, but there have been many things happening to get in the way. Now however, we are a good way from home waters, tied up in Egersund in fact, and P & Q is all around.

Worst was that the engine got weaker and weaker after leaving Sandefjord, with much black smoke out of the exhaust. Luckily the winds blew well in the right direction and we ended up, effectively engine-less, with Kristiansands Boat and Motor, who had the right competence and spare parts store. Very friendly people. Turned out that the exhaust exit from the engine was blocked by a build-up of soot and koks, effectively choking things, (there’s a lot of it about I understand).
One day later, finger nails grimy, yards of dirty rags, better knowledge of strained muscles, but weary and happy, (except for the bill for spare parts). Josin’s engine was back to full power.

Then Josin was pointed south west with suitable wind abaft, and we made nearly 100 nm in two days, making up for lost time, to Egersund, rounding Lindesnes with relief, as for a while before, I didn’t think we were going to make it soon.
I imagine I can see a Josin smudge seen from the webcam on the lighthouse, can you?. No? Never mind, we were there, honest!

Screenshot

I’d had several visiting plans and a gentle sail down the coast, but had to scrap all of them in favour of fixing the engine problem.

What now? Well, the original plan for this season’s cruise was to explore places and fjords not visited before, after rounding Lindesnes, but then Kari asked me “didn’t I want to visit Shetland again, and could she be crew”?. Yes, but Yes!
So that’s the plan. We meet up in Tananger, west for Stavanger, in a few day’s time, sail up to Bergen learning the while, (Kari has earlier titled herself “Second fender”, but soon she will be advanced to sailor, navigator, radio operator, sometimes ships cook, and other crewey activities), before the right weather window arrives. Bergen to Lerwick is the shortest crossing, just under 200 nm, which should take us less than 40 hours.
Watch this space!

Alls well, from JosinJohn