6/18/03 – to Karlsborg and on to Tatorp

Leaving Motola, you immediately cross Lake Vättern. This lake is 80 miles long and 20 miles wide. We were crossing the 20 mile wide portion. We managed to sail about half of the distance, but were relegated to motoring as the wind died down. At Karlsborg , on the other side of the lake, is a large fort/castle which is still being used as an active military base for the Swedish Army. There is one tour a day through the complex and we unfortunately arrived too late to take it.

We began to feel that we were pressed for time. First, we were running late on our overall itinerary to get the boat to Amsterdam. Second, we were running late to get Gene to Göteburg. In fact, we figured we wouldn’t make it, so we needed to get him to a town with a train station. It appeared that Mariestad was the only likely place and it was still several days away. This pushed us to move on while there was still daylight. We continued to pass through the occasional lock until arriving at Lake Viken. This is the highest point on the canal system, 92 meters (302 ft.) above sea level. The town on the other side of the lake is called Tatorp and there is a lock just in before the town. After so many up-locks, this will be our first down lock along the Canal. Because the town is so small, this particular lock closes at 6:00 pm, rather than the normal 8:00 pm. We arrived after closing and spent the night moored next to the dock in front of the lock.

6/19/03 – Sjötorp

This is the end of the line for the Göta Canal. Sjötorp rests on the edge of Lake Vänern, the largest lake in Sweden and the third largest lake in Europe. The country side for the prior couple of days had changed from farmlands to forests and wilderness. As we approached the last two locks on the system, there were the usual spectators. A couple of young girls seemed quite interested in the process so we invited them, and their mother, along for a ride. Dad stayed behind with the baby, but the girls excitedly joined us and watched with fascination the process of the boat sinking to the next level in the lock.

We had wanted to go to Mariestad, but the wind started picking up directly from the direction we wanted to go, ie., south. It was blowing over 10 m/sec and didn’t seem to be letting up. So the decision was made to go have dinner and see if the wind will die down. Mariestad is only another 10 miles, so we should be able to make it in a couple of hours.

The marina was completely full. There were a few spots along a wall that was directly downwind. This particular dock was designed for small boat (under 25 ft.) bows-to mooring while catching a stern ball. We couldn’t fit and there were no other spots. So we decided to lay along side. The big problem with this is that the wind was so strong, we would only get one opportunity to make our approach and then we would be pushed into the dock for good or bad.

Our approach turned out to be good and we landed without incident. Went into the restaurant, had an unremarkable dinner and returned to find the wind even stronger. Checked our lines and decided to spend the night. We were uneasy with this decision because, with this strong of a wind blowing us into the dock, it would likely portend a rough night as we bounced off the pier.

We didn’t have to wait long for things to get a little more interesting however. There was maybe 30 ft. of unused dock behind us. And there were more and more boats entering the marina looking for space, and of course there wasn’t any. Finally a 42 ft. X-boat started circling the marina like a dog circles his bed prior to plopping down. The fact that there was only 30 ft. of dock space and 42 ft. of boat, didn’t seem to be of much concern for this skipper. Jan was reading in the aft cabin when she was rudely surprised by the sight of a bow pulpit appearing above the aft cabin skylight. Steve was trying his best to fend off the intruder and hopefully keep the boats from smacking into each other. And remember the wind. This landing had the same factors going for it that our’s did, mainly once the approach was started; it was going to be finished one way or the other and a second opportunity was not in the cards.

The whole situation did not smell right to us and we noticed that there was a space on the other side of the marina which opened up. This looked like a better spot to us, because the wind would be blowing us off the dock. Now we had an opportunity to use Dashew’s spring line exit where it really counted. We spent about a half-hour setting up for our departure, with lots of on-lookers watching intently trying to figure out what we were doing.

When the time came to exit, we powered forward smartly, pushing the stern out, hard reverse, cut the bow spring line and backed into the harbor, turn the wheel to port, apply forward power, oops, turn the wheel to your other port, more power and we are out of there just like we knew what we were doing. Docking on the other side we were able to employ another one of Dashew’s techniques. This time we rigged a breast line trough the center cleat to the main wench. Dropped Jan off the bow onto the dock with the line, backed off, turned the boat to the port and cranked her home with the wench. Worked perfectly.

Well the 42 ft boat that landed behind us was named Shanghai and was flying a German flag. Kind of unusual, so we grabbed a bottle of wine and decided to introduce ourselves and satiate our curiosity. A retired German owned the boat and two Englishmen were providing crew. They were old friends and had apparently had sailed together often over the years.

Why the name “Shanghai” we inquired? Because “That is where I made my fortune” replied the German. Turned out that he was the first person in China, over 30 years ago, who set up factories to make shipping containers, the kind you see on large cargo vessels. He sold his company a couple of years ago and now “does what ever he damn pleases.”  We spent the rest of the night swapping stories about China and drinking wine. He thought Steve was quite the skipper for the spring line exit. Said that he had sailed over 50,000 miles and had never seen such a maneuver executed so smartly.  He thought we were very experienced sailors. Who were we to correct him?

6/20/03 – Mariestad and on to Lake Vänern (Kummethon Island)

Gene was scheduled to leave in a couple of days from Amsterdam. That we were not very close, is a bit of an understatement. We needed to get to Mariestad this morning, so he could catch a train to Götenburg, so he could catch a plane to Amsterdam, so he could catch a plane home to Seattle. The wind had died but was still out of the south, so we motored to Mariestad and arrived before noon. We took a quick walk through town, bought charts for the rest of the way to Götenburg, dropped Gene at the train station, jumped back on the boat and headed out onto Lake Vänern.

Lake Vänern is a big lake, over 100 miles long, and we were going to have to cross about 70 of them. It was going to take us a couple days. It started to cloud up almost immediately as we left and began to rain. Pretty soon it was coming down so hard, we had trouble seeing more than a few feet ahead.

As we worked our way through some islands in the middle of the lake, a large castle appeared out of the rain and fog. There was a small marina next to it that we considered stopping, but it was pretty full. Today is Sunday and the day before Mid-summer, which happens to be the biggest Swedish holiday of the year. Every Swede that had any sort of access to a boat was on the lake and that didn’t leave much room for transient moorage.

We probably should have figured a way to squeeze in, because even though we didn’t think it could rain any harder, that is not what Zeus thought. He knew it could. Next we came upon a small mostly empty marina, but the chart showed that it was quite shallow, probably too shallow for us. We tried to work our way in, very slowly, ever so slowly. It was only a hundred feet or so away before we touched bottom. Oh well, let’s back up and try somewhere else. Finally we found an island to pull behind, dropped the bow and stern anchors, set the GPS alarm, closed the hatches and went below and just let it rain is little heart out.

Just before sunset, the sky began to clear and we were treated to a special evening. Jan really, really likes the late sunshine. She continued to talk about this night for months.