The Move To Helsingborg
/The move
Day 1
The time finally came when all the upgrades to the boat were completed and we were to move our new home from Henån to Helsingborg. We asked a good friend of ours, Henrik, if he would like to come along for the trip and he jumped at the chance.
On Saturday the 3rd of Nov. at 6:20, our journay began. I was originally thinking we could take the bus but as Anna and I were packing, we were packing more and more things. It seemed liked we needed everything for the trip and our bags were getting heavier and heavier. In order to make it easy on us, we ordered a taxi and we were at the train station by 06:30. Why kill ourselves in the first part of the trip when we have a long couple of days ahead of us.
Once at the train station we had some time to kill but it went by fast and before we knew it, we were sitting on the train heading towards our boat. We had 1st class tickets (they were that same price as a regular ticket) and at that early on a Saturday morning, the section we were sitting in was pretty empty and quite. We got a nice breakfast and the 2.5 hour trip to Gothenberg went by fairly quickly.
We had more time to kill in GBG, and since we all were up since at least 06:00 on a Saturday, we need caffine. So we headed over to Espresso house for some coffee and chi latte. We still had one more train and bus leg until we arrived in Henån and did not want to fall asleep in the train station :)
The train and bus legs of the trip went off without a hitch. We figured that we would stop in Henån square where there was a liquor store (systembolaget) and get some beer for our trip since the store would be closed on Sunday. It was not until we were almost there that I looked up the opening times and discovered that the liquor store was closed. I failed to realize that the 3rd of Nov. was a holiday. Needless to say we were bumed out. We also thought we would be able to get a taxi to boat yard but after calling for a taxi, we found out that it was a 45 minute wait, we called Mattias, our point of contact, and he arranged for his dad, Charles, to come pick us up and take us the 10km to the boat. It would take him about 45 minutes as well so with nothing to do, we went to the local pizza place and had pizza for lunch.
Just as we were finishing up, Charles showed up and we loaded all of our gear into his car and head off to the boat. Upon arriving, we could see that they were still cleaning the boat and doing some last minute things. I was pretty surprised that they cleaned the boat as well as they did. I was expecting it to be a mess and we would have to spend a whole day cleaning her. What a relief this was.
I did notice that one thing that was not done with regards to the anchor. I talked with Mattias at the beginning of the week to have like a block or something that would protect the bow from the tip of Rocnar anchor. This was not done and I told them that it needed to be completed before we left. Charles got on the phone and got people working on the problem. While he was fixing that, I had a walk through with Fredrick who did the electrical upgrades on the boat. He did some great work and was very thorough and took his time explaining what was done and how things worked. I still need to read up on everything that was done.
By the time we were done going over everything and the problem with the anchor was fixed, it was almost dark. I was hopping that we would be able to motor to Henån before it was dark but things with boats seem to always take longer than what you expect. Fortunately it was only a 30 minute motor over to Henån. When trying to leave the dock, a cat decided it wanted to stow away so Anna had to play imigration agent and deny entrance to the boat. Click to see Anna hurrying to get the cat off the boat.
Other than getting a little confused with some lights along the way, we made it to Henån safe and sound. After tying up starboard side to the dock, we headed over to the local supermarket to stock up for the trip to Helsingborg. There was only one thing on our shopping list, "Everything". That is what we needed. We just went up and down the aisles grabbing what we wanted. A couple of thousand crowns later, we were on our way back to the boat to cook dinner, shower up and get some sleep. We had a lot to do the next day to ready the boat for the passage.
Day 2
Sunday was a nice sunny and cold day. Not to cold but it was a crisp cold were you needed a jacket or two but as long as you were working and moving around it was not to bad. There was hardly any wind so that gave us a chance to unfurl the sails, go over them, go through the procedures on how to reef them and furl them, rig jack lines and give everything a once over. We filled up on water and since I had little more than 3/4 tank of diesel, I did not worry about filling up. We were planning on leaving Monday morning at 07:00, but that was not to be.
Day 3
When we were motoring to Henån from the Malö boat yard, I noticed that the RPM gage would drop to 0 and the engine hours would disappear. Then after a while, I would get the RPM readings back. Then they would drop again. The motor was working fine, but the gage would not display correctly. I call Mattias on Sunday to let him know about this and he said he would send Fredrick over on Monday first thing to have a look. Fredrick showed up and tried to trouble shoot it but had no luck. He was talking with Mastervolt about this since it had something to do with our lithium batteries. They could not come to the boat until the afternoon since they were working on something else. So instead of waiting around, we decided to proceed with our trip and have the Mastervolt guys meet us in Stenungsund. Stenungsund was on our route and close to where the Mastervolt technicians were working so it worked out good.
It was a beautiful motor through the archipelago. A lot of beautiful houses right close to the water and stunning scenery. Around 12:30 we arrived in Stenungsund. We contacted Fredrick and he said that the Mastervolt guys were on their way. About an hour later, they showed up. They went right to work trouble shooting and after about an 30-35 minutes, they found the problem. As I suspected, it was something easy but take a long time to find. It seemed that the controller for the batteries was set for 24v and not 12v. The pulse signal was wrong going to the RPM gage and that is also why the battery idiot light was coming on at times. Unfortunately, the 2 hour delay leaving Henån and this delay did not help our schedule. We still had about 4 hours or motoring to our first night stop and it was already 15:00. Being November in Sweden, the sun was setting at 15:30 and it was dark by 16:30. If it was just Anna and I, I would have just stayed in Stenungsund for the night, but we had a schedule to keep and Henrik had to be back to work on Thursday. So we pushed on.
It was not to bad in the dark, we had the charts, plotter and the nav lights marking the channels. Everything was fine until we came to the one section of the channel. There was a bridge and the marked height was 18m. It says in the information books I got with the boat that our air draft was 17.25m. So a good .75cm to spare. I was thinking it would be close but no problems. As we came to the bridge, it was lighted in such a way that it seemed like we were a lot closer than what I thought. According to the charts and plotter, there were two little stone islands that I had to go through before I got to the bridge. Henrik was on the bow as look out and Anna was near me to relay what Henrik said over the walkie talkies. I told him about the two islands and he said he did not see anything. I came to a stop so I could evaluate the situation. I heard stories about the plotters sometimes not being 100% accurate and thought maybe this was one of those times. I decided to motor ahead slowly, then I hear on the walkie talkies to reverse, I threw the engine into reverse and Henrik was saying that there was an island right in front of us. We got to within 10m of hitting that island. The lights from the bridge casted a shadow that hid the islands. Once back far enough, I changed coursed and followed the plotter and weaved our way through the two islands. Then we cam to the bridge. Even though I knew we should fit under and not hit anything, the pucker factor was still high. Seeing your mast start to go under the bridge hoping that you will not hit anything is not fun at any time let alone, in the dark and just after you almost ran aground.
We made it under the bridge without problems and that was such a relief but we were all still a little shaken from the close call with the rocks. As we were motoring the cloud cover came in and it got pitch black. On this section of the channel, there were no buoys, nav lights or lights on shore. We could not see anything except for our on nav and deck lights. Click to see what we saw. Henrik was still on the bow keeping watch and my eyes were glued to the plotter and radar screen. As we motored I keep the boat in the middle of the channel while Anna and Henrik kept lookout. After about an 1.5 hours, we made it to our turn and joined up with the main channel that had nav lights. I had two white lights that I just needed to keep them aligned and it would take us all the way to our first stop in Bjökö.
We finally arrived around 20:30-21:00. Docked the boat and noticed that everything was closed. After the close call with the rocks, bridge and darkness, we all just wanted a beer to celebrate that we got through everything without any damage or injury. But the beer would have to wait until the next day. We showered up, cooked some hot dogs and went to bed. We wanted to get an early start the next day.
Day 3
We departed Bjökö around 07:00 and headed for Varberg. It was still a little dark but the light was starting to take over and as the time past, we could see more and more or our surroundings. We had some cable ferries that we need to dodge but it was no big deal. Then we could set the auto pilot on our course and relax a bit. We wanted to sail but what little wind there was, was coming from the direction that we needed to go. So we motored, and motored, and motored some more. We rotated around keeping watch on our heading and to avoid fishing nets. There were a lot of them. It was a pretty boring leg but after the day before, we were all glad that it was boring. We arrived into Varberg around 15:00-15:30. Payed that marina fees, got the code to the showers and decided that we needed to have that beer. After we showered, we walked about 10 minute to the town center were we found a Harry's. They had Guinness and burgers which was perfect for us. We sat down and ordered 3 Guinnesses. With our bellies full and a Guinness in us, we were all feeling really sleepy. We quicly paid the bill and walked back to the boat before we all fell asleep right there in the restaurant. Once our heads hit the pillows, we were all out for the night.
Day 4
Beautiful sunrise while on our way to Torekov Sweden
The day would take us from Varberg to Torekov. The weather was predicted to be fairly calm but the wind would get up to about 15 knots once we got a little more offshore. The direct rout to Torekov would take us offshore so we were hoping that we might get some favorable winds so we could do some sailing. The morning was all motor. Nothing much happened except for dodging a few fishing nets. Around early afternoon Anna went to lay down and she was out like a light. Shortly after that the wind started to pick up and the chop started to increase. We were getting up to 15 knots of wind with gust up to 20 knots. There were a few times were we were getting bounced around a lot. Anna was wedged on sofa which is on the starboard side and we had the wind coming from our port side. So with the heel of the boat, she was not going anywhere. Henrik and I thought about putting up the sails but as we were about to do that, we could see a squall coming and it was not looking good. So we decided to wait until the squall passed. About 30 minutes later it passed but we still had 18 to 20 knots of wind. We just set the stay sail and were able to sail at 5.5 knots. But not entirely in the direction we wanted. We had the wind 45 degrees off our bow but the direction we need to go would put the wind at about 10-15 degrees off our bow. No good for sailing. We continued on for a bit and then furled up the stay sail, turned the motor on and changed course to head straight for Torekov. After all this, Anna woke up and was surprised that we sailed, made lunch (hot dogs), and had some left over for her. She can sleep through anything when she is tired.
We arrived in Torekov around 15:00. It was still light out and the marina was empty so finding a spot was not that difficult. We moored starboard side to the pier and spent the next 30 min cleaning the boat while Henrik pack his things. He could of stayed with us to the end, but not knowing how long it would take us to get to Helsingborg the next day, he did not want to stress getting home and then to work which I can fully understand. We walked Henrik to the bus stop and watched him get on the bus and leave for home. Now Anna and I were by ourselves. We were hungry and went to see what was open in Torekov. Torekov is a quaint little town but it seems to be a seasonal town. Most things were closed or had signs that said closed for the season. Luckily we found a pizza place that was open. It was quite nice and it seemed like this place would be very busy during the summer.
Since all it was the off season, there was no charge for the night but the hot water was turned off in the marina and they only had 6A electric hook up. Not wanting to take a really cold shower, we tried out our shower on the boat. It was a little cramp and we were limited in how much water we had but it worked out. We went to bed early again since we wanted to make sure we arrived in Helsingborg before noon.
Day 5
We left around 07:00 and we had so much fog that we could barley see the bow of the boat. I fired up the radar and had Anna standing by with the fog horn. One good thing about sailing in November in Sweden is that there are no boats out. You are pretty much all alone out on the water. Every few minutes Anna would trigger the fog horn and I was keeping a close eye on the radar. After about 2 hours, the fog started to lift a little and we saw the sun once but then it disappeared. Click here to see what we saw. Once we turn the corner around Kullen, we hit the current and like the wind, it was against us. We were motoring at 7 knots then we dropped to 4. We had a 3 knot current against us all the way to Helsingborg. The straight between Denmark and Sweden was pretty calm, no boats to worry about and we could let "Auto" (auto pilot) steer us all the way to our new home. We arrived a little before lunch, found our spot and moored the boat. After cleaning up with a hot long shower in the marina, we started the really hard work. Moving all or our stuff from Malmö to the boat.