Voyage Around the World No. 4

Lyndsi McNaughton

July 2, 2010

Dr. Gus Wilson is an office space client at our BusinesSuites Harborplace location in Baltimore, Maryland. Gus is on an annual sail voyage taking him and his wife, Helen, around the world. When their journey is complete we expect to have him back at the office as a client again. Below is the fourth excerpt from his voyage journal. There is a couple more to come.

A 100 mile sail south and to windward in 20-25 knots in the Kattegat delivered us at 1 AM (now it was definitely dark at night) into Gilleleje, a Danish village noted for smuggling 1800+ Jews to neutral Sweden in fishing boats during the war. The villagers also tended their neighbor’s abandoned homes, gardens, livestock and pets until they could return years later. We passed the Helsingør Castle (Hamlet’s home in Shakespeare) to stop in the Langelinie Marina by the Little Mermaid in København. We spent several days as tourists, visiting art galleries, cultural museums, Tivoli Gardens amusement park, and nice parks and outdoor sculptures. In the central Nyvan canal, we saw Simoon IV, the brand new sailboat of OCC and Cruising Association friends Simon and Janet, who live by the Thames near us in London. Over the next few weeks, we spent a lot of enjoyable time in their company.

Taking shelter from yet another gale in Præsto, we were again shown a warm Scandinavian welcome. Nils was the first to arrive, shortly after we tied to the town quay. He returned later to invite us to the after-race party of their sailing club nearby. The next day, the club editor came by and interviewed us for their sailing club magazine. (The 3 page article was emailed to us later, and awaits translation.) A few days later Nils and his wife, Merete, returned and gave us a nice English language book on Denmark, plus information on their town nearby.

We took an inside passage along the south side of Sjælland, a 50-60 mile trip in a shallow channel (with never more than 1 or 2 feet below our keep, and often only inches). The channel was well marked, but sinuous. We passed through thick beds of eel grass, which kept fouling the prop, and slowing us down. Winds were 20-25 knots on our bow all day. We had to frequently reverse the prop to clear it, and eventually the throttle linkage started to slip, so that we kept losing power. We had planned to reach by mid-afternoon the first island that could provide shelter in its lee or and anchor. As we reached slightly more open water, with a long fetch to the wind, and still a long way to go, the waves increased and we were only creeping along at 2 knots. If we revved the engine up too much, it would begin to overheat, due to the grass on the prop. Finally we reached an area with enough room to tack, unrolled our jib partway, continuing to motor to prevent being blown sideways as we did not have water deep enough to lower Wings 4 ft. centerboard, and short-tacked about 40 times until anchoring near midnight, and falling to sleep as soon as we lay down.

After one more brief stop in Denmark, where we joined Simoon IV (and Simon dived down to check our prop) we had a lovely peaceful sail to Laboe, Germany (where we found our best pastry of the summer, a cherry cake). Simon and Janet’s Hamburg friends kindly helped us order and pay for a digital chart we needed. The next day, we entered the Kiel Canal by the east lock for a pleasant 2 day passage in flat water along the pretty canal, lined by lush green vegetation, along with a number of big ships that posed no problem. The west lock put us into the River Elbe, on the ebb tide for a quick passage to Cuxhaven, another sheltered marina, and another pleasant town, where we waited out still another gale.

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