( Other years: 1997- 1998- 1999- 2000- 2001- 2002- 2003- 2004- 2005- 2006- 2007- 2008- 2009- 2010)
February - August
Bird of Passage has now left Sweden and is on her way south. We don't know when she'll be back, if ever. That means that there is not much more to tell about her construction. This might be the last update to “The story about Bird of Passage” but there is a chance that a new blog will show up on toan.se later with reports about her voyages. Until then, here is a report of the last pieces of work that we did during spring 2011 and a short report of her summer trip from Sweden to England.
Everything in a sailboat needs a place of its own where it is securely fastened. After having all books in one of our book shelfs falling out over and over, we secured them with black straps and metal fasteners. Our sewing machine is fastened the same way. To the left of the sewing machine is our HF (SSB) radio, an ICOM 706 MkII. Our call sign is SLWP. The back stay has isolators and is used as antenna. Seems to work fine, had a good contact from Holland to north of Sweden a few days ago.
From 4 pipes of 25 mm stainless tubing, 9 meters of blue canvas and some fittings I made this Bimini-top. A good friend helped me with pipe bending and sewing. The Bimini covers the entire bridge deck and protects from sun and rain. Once finished we have never taken it down. We even had it up in a 16 m/s (apparent wind speed) gale along the Dutch coast ! The Bimini really makes a lot of difference.
The keel hydraulics was finished during May. A standard Volvo Penta rubber bellow was mounted on the keel box and the hydraulic cylinder was then mounted in it's fittings. As the keel goes up and down the cylinder tilts 5-10 degrees and this movement is taken up by the rubber bellow. A small miscalculation lead to a hole having to be made into the mid cabin to let the end of the cylinder move freely. The nice thing with this is that you see the tilt angle of the cylinder and thereby easily determine if the keel is up or down or someway in between. The cylinder is operated through a hand pump and a system of hydraulic valves that are designed to keep the keel in position but still let her swing up if running aground. Next year an electric pump will be fitted. The system seems to work very fine so far. With the keel down the draft is 3.2 meters. A boat that deep has problems in many marinas, not to say the canals in Holland. With the keel up she is only 1.6 deep and that is no problem at all. Sailing with the keel up is ok with the wind from behind. Speed actually increases somewhat with the keel up. This also saves fuel when motoring. With the wind against you the keel needs to be down to get a reasonable sailing result without too much drift. With the keel down she is also more comfortable in rough seas.
Anchoring is an important issue. I still haven't purchased a proper windlass but I have a 27 kg CQR anchor and I made this bowsprit to harbor it. At the stern we have a 22 kg CQR that we have used a lot. Bird of Passage actually behaves much better with an anchor in the stern than at the bow when anchoring on the swing so there is a chance that we will mount a windlass in the stern as well.
Sails are expensive but we really needed a new foresail so I ordered one last October and it was delivered now in June. 65 square meters, 500 gram/m2 dacron, blue UV-protection and designed for the Furlex reefing system. So far it has performed well.
After these jobs were done we left our home port in lake Hjälmaren in the beginning of July. The plan was to take the boat to England and leave her there for the winter with the oldest son aboard looking for a job. We left the Swedish mainland through Södertälje and headed for the island of Gotland in the Baltic sea. Gotland has an interesting geological story. Here is one of the magnificent coral remains from old times, a 15 meter high Rauk on the north part of Fårö. Somebody said it reminded of me !
After that we headed for the very small island of Utklippan where we arrived in rain and strong winds at five o'clock in the morning. Utklippan has a seal colony and lots of birds. This picture from Utklippan has both !
The strong winds prevailed. We continued to Brantevik, once the centre of the Swedish sailing fleet. Here is Bird of Passage behind the protecting pier.
Next stop was Kiel in Germany. We tried to put out our fishing line behind the boat but with strong winds and high speeds the only thing you get is fish that lives very close to the surface. One of these is Garfish (Horngädda eller Näbbgädda). We caught two of them, this is what they look like. Tove made excellent fish burgers the next day !
Through the Kiel canal and out onto the North sea. Next stop was the island of Helgoland where we arrived as the sun went down. Helgoland is tax free so... Beer is delivered to the boat by rope, check this and this !
Now we headed for Holland. It's almost 15 years since we sailed these waters and a big change is all the container ships. Here is a BIG one (Edith Maersk, 397 meters long). Due to continuing strong winds we entered the Dutch canal system through den Helder and went south, spent a few days in Alkmaar (very nice) and continued almost all the way to Amsterdam before we turned west and came out into the North sea again. From there we set the compass for the Thames Estuary east of London. Be aware of wind farms! Also, watch out for the old forts ! We headed for Medway river on the south side of the Thames Estuary and found a boy at Queensborough. Four meters of tide !
It was August, we were now in England and it was time to start planning for the winter. We wanted to find a marina that we could afford. There are many, maybe fifty within 50 nautical miles. One is Gillingham Marina 6 miles upstream in Medway river, close to Chatham. We took a public boy outside the marina and talked to the manager. Unfortunately he could not let anyone live aboard during the winter but he was very nice and offered us to lock into the marina to land our dinghy and leave our bicycles for some days without charge.
One thing we needed was Internet. We took our bikes to Chatham and found a shop from the 3-network, same as we had in Sweden. Since we did not have a permanent address in UK we could not get a contract (abbonemang) but “pay as you go” - sim card (kontantkort) was OK. We payed 50 pounds for a sim card valid for 12 gigabytes of download under a maximum of 12 months. Back to the boat we put it in the USB-dongle connected to our Dovado UMR router. Worked directly. WLAN on board for all computers, me and Martin even played World of Warcraft last evening. I'm really glad we installed the external GSM-antenna and locked up the modem before we left Sweden. We now have really fast and good Internet access.
One of the computers on board connected to our WLAN is our new IPAD-II. We bought it shortly before we left Sweden and have also bought Navionics digital charts. An IPAD costs approx. the same as any normal plotter/navigator but is so much more versatile. Navionics digital charts for the IPAD cost practically nothing compared to charts for “real” navigators/plotters. An IPAD can browse the internet, it can take photos and film, it has a built in GPS, google world, maps and so on....Here is a screenshot of our current position ! On a boat like Bird of Passage where all navigation is done inside the boat an IPAD is really fantastic.
We are now sending e-mails to the marinas in the area to find out about prices etc. Meanwhile we can study the locals sailing the Medway river. Here is one ! First time I saw a boat like that. Tomorrow we will visit the Historic Dockyard of Chatham with full size warships and a lot more.
It has been a fantastic journey to build Bird of Passage but that journey is now finished. After almost 15 years we are now sailing again and that is something different. Today is the 18:th of August, Tove left a few days ago to go back to work in Sweden. Martin and I will find a good winter harbor for the Bird and then I will also return to Sweden for work during the winter. Tove and I will visit Birdie by car over christmas and next spring we will continue south or maybe north through the Caledonian canal first...There is so much fun to do !
