Down at the dock the spray form the fjord was washing over boats 200 feet away. No night to be at sea – but it worked out to be nice night to be in the cabin. At least as long as the boat is securely roped to the dockside. I don’t understand why anyone would wish to live close to a sailboat marina. The howling of the wind and the clatter of halyards hitting the aluminum masts must be annoying – to say the least.
Not so nice
On any given day this would have been one of the no-so-nice trips to check out the boat in the middle of a gale. But a few days ago I installed a new diesel oven. And the change is formidable. I have kept it burning just to check that everything is working fine. So during the gale I went below and just savoured the heat and dryness. The yacht has never been among the very wet ones, but she always get damp, cold and uninviting during winter. Everything start to smell a littel stale and all my equipment seems cold and damp.
No more
What a change! Why on earth did it take me five years to get rid of the old diesel-electric heater? It never did work right – and when it worked it made noise and ate through my batteries. It finally sign it’s own death-penalty when it quit during a two-hand race from Bergen to Stavanger and back. At best this is a long race. When hit by cold strong headwinds and no heat below – it was unendurable. When my first-mate turned blue and her upper lip started quivering I knew it was time for some fast reaching towards the island Utsira.
Nightmares
Well – the real reason for dragging my feet for so long, was that I had to cut through the teak-deck for the exhaust-pipe. And I hate making holes – I hate it even more than I hate cutting rope. Sailors who buy expensive ropes, and make sure it is long enough by overdoing it by two meters, know what I mean. Anyhow – I finally did summon courage enough to drill a large hole in the cabin roof, and it was no big deal. Nothing to stay awake and think dark and sorrowful thoughts about leakage and rot.
X-mas sailing
Now it is so nice that I want to go x-mas sailing. At least I want to go out to see if there is cod to be had for 2.day x-mas. That is the best cod ever. Coming up from the cold fjord, hard and white in the meat and snarled by bait a cold and snowy day. Served with small potatoes, lots of boiled carrots and melted butter with cream and parsley…. And I want to cruise the fjords towards Sjernarøy for a two day lecture in university ped.
I have sailed the Bahamas and Florida – and the truth is that cold wind sailing with a nice glow below is much to prefer to hot wind sailing all day and even hotter nights.
If I get to the x-mas sailing and the cod fishing – I will blogg you all about it. Be my guest!
The Kaskelot depiction takes you topside
5 comments
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Friday, December 1, 2006 at 7:43 am
Bjørn Aage
Nå fant jeg deg! Stilig!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006 at 1:59 pm
Morten
Strålende greier,, lekre billeder,, men jeg savner en kommentar om at det er lettere å sage huller i annenmanns båt, enn i egen. ellers lurer jeg på om “stove” er bedre enn “oven”, som om jeg ikke husker feil betyr stekovn….. har ikke noen ordbok i nærheten.. morten
Thursday, January 11, 2007 at 12:04 am
Kurt Lange
Hello Espen,
Thanks a lot for the very detailed considerations and advises you sent me how to improve sails and sailing performance of my kaskelot “Hvalen”, København. I will consider if it will be more convenient to go back to the original stay, and look for sails with the dimensions you have suggested. I found the link to Elstroem demo sails, but the Sun Fast 35 sails are too large for my 13,45 m stay.
It is a nice Website you are doing, I like it and will follow it closely. Best regards Kurt
Monday, May 7, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Nick Kats
Dear Espen
A question.
What production lines of double enders, full keel, heavy displacement, do you know of?
The Kaskelot has a fin keel. This makes it hard to ground her for whatever reason – bottom scraping and repainting, accidental grounding, etc. Fin keels are more vulnerable than full keels and the rudder is exposed. Tangling with lines and nets are more likely, etc.
The production lines I know of, 30 to 40 foot long on deck, are:
USA: Alajuela 38, Ingrid 38, Benford 38, Westsail 32, the Tahitis.
UK: Saltram/Saga 36 and 40.
Are there any others that you know of?
Thanks for the info on the Stelton lamp! Your family has grand taste and a heart.
Nick Kats
Ireland
Tuesday, May 8, 2007 at 10:44 am
reiss
Dear Nick,
check out the Perry design at http://www.perryboat.com/page/bio – that is the Tayana and the Valiant and some more modern designs. Then – if you have money for it – check the Hans Christian’s, if I’m not wrong they have your full keel. Don’t forget the Sweedish Olle Enderlin- the OE’s – which is a nice 32 foot double ender. There are also a few Freya from Australia, based on the famous Freya that you can read about in other parts of this blogg – famous double enders..
Keels: With a full skegg the rudder is not compromised, even with a finn keel.
A finn keel is less expencive to produce and make the boat more livly and easyer to manouver. A full keel will be better on the open seas, but will make the boat less easy to manouver in the dock, and the boat more heavy, more expensive – and in generall it will crave more sailpower and a larger engine to perform as well as the finn. However, some finns are harder to make stabel on land while doing the spring chores. My boat has a tendency to be nose heavy because of the backwardswept keel.
A well designe finn keel will alsdo be strong eneough to take a grounding or two. No boat – weather full keel or finn keel – will enjoy it. And it might be easyier to get a finn keel of the grounding than the full keel.
You can go on and on arguing this thing. I find that all boats are compromises – between comforts of the creature, between safety and sailing abilites or sailing speed – the Kaskelot is as far as I know the best compromise I have found.
Fair winds, Espen