(17’ double ender, clinker, lug & small jib, dagger-board, 9” draught)

“At least it didn’t start raining till after supper…”: so read the end of my log for 26th July. We had spent a whole day beating in very light winds, making eight miles to windward in eight hours. We’d had to row to reach our anchorage and that was only shelter between a small island and the shore. Then there was the bore, more irksome than usual, of putting up the tent and unstowing everything from up forward. Then the primus wouldn’t light properly and supper seemed to take ages. But now we were listening to the raindrops falling on the tent and persuading ourselves that this was what we’d come dinghy cruising for.

It was still raining at 0040 next morning when the wind swung round and started blowing hard from the only exposed direction. We both woke and individually tried to persuade ourselves there was nothing we could do about it. After ten minutes I finally decided we weren’t going to sleep anyway, anchored in waves which had travelled the length of the Oslo Fjord. So away went lilos and sleeping bags, on went our oilskins and down came the tent. Steve pulled up the anchor and I set to the oars to row slowly round the island. By 0200 we were again lying prone on the floorboards listening to the water dripping off the stern deck and into the bilge six inches away.

An annoying chore, yet in a cruising dinghy such chores tend to increase and multiply. Simple things like cooking a meal, drying clothes or getting ready for bed take time and effort. But there are compensations: windward speed may only be a third of downwind speed, but you learn to appreciate and use a fair wind. You get used to the damp, and enjoy the sun all the more. Secluded anchorages and intricate channels are open only to you. And it’s cheap. That’s why 1981 saw me taking my double-ended lug-rigged open boat Eel back to Scandinavia, to the archipelagos of West Sweden and South Norway.

It took us a day or two to get afloat, pulling Eel off the ferry and hiring a car, then putting everything together and launching her. Our first day’s passage was an easy one, heading north through the islands, defence areas and shipping lanes round Gothenburg, with a light tail wind to carry us out to sea and into Marstrand from the west. It was regatta time and the whole of the town’s long waterfront was two-deep in boats moored head to quay. We could only find a temporary berth while we shopped, so we crossed the fjord and found a quiet berth in the islands. The next day saw us fetching out to sea to find more wind before bearing off to follow the pretty, but crowded lead north.

Reaching Gullholmen we were told about a small boat museum which gave us a good excuse to branch up a fjord NE, before turning back west through the Strommarna, a narrow deep water channel between islands S of Lykesil. Passing close to semi-submerged rocks to avoid the hidden ones in open water we nosed our way through and at the end found the museum, which was shut. But it had a good selection of traditional local boats and it was interesting to compare them with Eel, as she is supposedly a copy of a Norwegian open boat.

Next day was a day at sea to cover some distance. Or rather it was a day almost at sea, among the outer skerries. I frightened Steve (and myself, if truth be told) by taking an unmarked channel into Smogen between awash rocks in some swell. They looked very impressive. From there the wind stayed favourable and we found ourselves in Norway a week out from Gothenburg. From Papperhavn, a charming little harbour at the mouth of the Oslo Fjord, we headed north through a thunderstorm which brought strong tail-winds in its wake. We hustled half-way up the Oslo Fjord in a day. The second half took us three days of rowing and beating into a light head-wind, Eel is a good rowing boat, as dinghies go, but I don’t enjoy rowing her. So I was very glad to reach Oslo.

INDEX OF CHART PROGRESS

1 Marstrand… 2 Gullholmen… 3 Strommarna… 4 Lykesil… 5 Smogen… 6 Papperhavn… 7 Horten… 8 Larvik… 9 Rakkeboene Reef… 10 Kragero… 11 Risor… 12 Arendal… 13 Grimstad… 14 Lillesand… 15 Blindleia… 16 Hollen… 17 Hille… 16 Hollen… 12 Arendal… 8 Larvik… 6 Papperhavn… 18 Oddo and Tjarno… 19 Rassohamn… 20 Havstenssund… 21 Hamburgsund… 22 Hornosund… 23 Taresund… 24 Sotenkanal… 5 Smogen… 25 Hasselosund… 26 Bassholmen… 3 Strommarna… 2 Gullholmen… 27 Mollosund… 28 Toftosund… 29 Astol… 1 Marstrand… 30 Gota River… 31 Nordre Alvs Damm… 32 Kungalv

There we spent a nautical day looking at Fram, Ra, Kon Tiki, the Viking ships and the maritime museum. Then we left with a light tail which soon turned head and strengthened. The wind continued to increase as we reefed right down and pumped regularly. This was the strongest wind of the trip and we had difficulty making progress as our weight was insufficient to keep her upright if I sailed free enough to push her through the waves. We had plenty of refuges to leeward but I’m too obstinate to lose ground to windward unless it’s absolutely necessary. So we kept going till we reached an anchorage. The weather report that evening gave the maximum wind strength of the day as force 7 which allayed my disappointment at finding we’d only covered 11 miles to windward. We stopped next at Horten to shop and ring home. We’d so far avoided The Wedding to Steve’s relief. But he found a shop assistant who’d been over on the ferry to watch it. To his dismay she treated him to a full-blown description.

We spent the next week on the wind except for the occasional half hour’s reaching. Beating is at least a challenge to the helmsman, but Steve had nothing to do but read the chart and sit on the weather gunwhale getting wet. Add to this bad visibility, my rashness and a misunderstanding between us, and you won’t be surprised to hear we hit a rock and knocked a chunk out of the daggerboard. I’d just pointed out the next mark to Steve and he was saying “Well if it’s there, we’re about to hit the rock.” And he was right.

We took a day off after that as we didn’t fancy beating into a force 5 or 6 out at sea. Instead we left at 0530 next morning to catch the lighter morning winds. At 10 we were off Larvik and I decided to push on round the nasty Rakkeboene Reef which extends two or three miles out to sea at that point. Tack succeeded tack with steady, slow progress until the wind started increasing in the late afternoon. We were close to the islands outside Kragero when progress slowed dramatically, and we had some difficulty with the chartwork. So we were very glad to find an anchorage at 18.30. We’d covered a meagre 25 miles in 13 hours, but we were now in easier waters which I could handle on my own. Steve left me at Kragero to make his way back to Newcastle. He’s been a good crew especially considering he’d never sailed before. He was cheerful, small (and this is important on Eel) and above all tolerant not only of cold and wet (which he’s used to, being a cox) but also of me.

On my own I worked my way down the coast inside the islands, hopping out to sea only when I had to. The wind finally turned tail and blew me through Risor and Arendal to Grimstad and Lillesand. I stopped for an hour or two at each town and stayed each night in the islands. One anchorage I shall always remember: on the edge of the island chain facing out to sea, but protected from every direction by smooth ranks of low-lying skerries, it had a clean sandy bottom and just enough swinging room. I found it nosing through the rocks in a light breeze and I can’t distinguish its exact position on the chart. But I photographed it late that night as the sun set and the fish jumped.

The next day was the great day of the rendez-vous. My parents started their holiday in Jinty (a Chance 37) with instructions to sail to the Naze with a crew for me (Robert, my twin), two pots of homemade jam, a jar of Hellmann’s mayonnaise and the next of Trollope political novels. This they did, arriving off the Naze in thick fog and finding their way to Mandal. From there they worked their way up the coast looking for me. As I emerged from the Blindleia Inner lead, I saw them, but only 10 minutes later did they notice me and start waving. They insisted on going to an anchorage upwind. But when they saw how long they would have to wait for me (Jinty makes 5 knots dead to windward) they offered me a tow which I ignominiously accepted. I spent one night on board Jinty, without a low thwart to stop me turning over, before we went our separate ways. My parents took Jinty back to Holland via Sweden, Denmark and the Kiel Canal. Meanwhile Robert and I headed west looking for a chart shop. We failed and so decided to make the little port of Hollen our furthest point west. But sailing in, we were met by Kim Berner. He asked where we’d come from and where we were heading, and hearing we couldn’t go further for lack of charts, he took us home to tea with his wife. They gave us charts to the Naze, and in addition two little bottles of best aquavit, a tin of sweet corn and a loaf of bread warm from the oven. Rather overwhelmed, we promised to return and sailed off to an anchorage recommended by them. Then we sailed to Mandal, and round the island of Hille, catching a glimpse of the Naze before the wind turned SW and we decided to turn too. Returning to Hollen that evening we called on Mrs Berner. “When I saw your little blue sail, I started scrubbing the potatoes,” she said. “Would you like to have supper with us?” We couldn’t refuse that offer after Eel cuisine so we took the opportunity to shower ourselves and give Eel a scrub. Owing to some quirk of the anti-fouling, she had a complete covering of barnacles on one side, and very few on the other: Then with the boat and ourselves cleaner we sat down to a superb meal of fish freshly caught and cooked, served with soured cream and gooseberry sauce. At the end of the evening our hosts even said they want to come and watch the Boat Race next year if we make the grade.

From Hollen it took us five days to get back to Stromstad in Sweden, with daily runs of 29, 29½, 40, 34 and 23 miles. Again, we spent most nights in the islands but on our one night in harbour we were given supper by the owner of a small double-ender and of an authentic American WW2 jeep complete with camouflage nets! Most of the sailing was relaxed downwind work where one of us would steer while the other read Trollope aloud. But we had two days out at sea where it was hard work steering as she corkscrewed fast through the waves. On the first we passed a lifeboat towing a sinking yacht off the rocks and into Arendal. On the second we crossed the Oslo Fjord direct from Larvik to Papperhavn. We headed for the conspicuous Faerder light which meant sailing where the sea shallows from 100 metres to less than 20 within two miles. It was correspondingly rough and when we turned onto a broad reach to head NE for Papperhavn, the sea rolled her all over the place. At one point (when Robert had put down the plate without telling me) a wave rolled both gunwhales under. But once we were past the light and into the body of the fjord things got better and we made good progress to Papperhavn where we sailed through the tiny outer and inner harbours to anchor in the shallow river beyond.

From Papperhavn and Stromstad we went slowly through the tortuous channel inside the islands of Oddo and Tjarno. We thought it was slightly difficult and were quite pleased to have spotted and used it. At the end we were spotted by Niklas Kihlbohm and his English wife Peggy who invited us to lunch and told us that the passage was in fact used by a 200 ton torpedo boat as a blindfold radar exercise for cadets! They also told us about their lovely old fisherman’s cottage which belonged to Niklas’ aunt. She had lived there until 85, rowing over to the village and climbing the ladder up to bed every day. We were escorted out of Rassohamn by Niklas on his windsurfer and spent that night just beyond Havstenssund. From there we had fair winds to carry us south; fair, but strong. So we stayed well inside using all the inner passages, the Hamburgsund, Hornosund, Taresund and the Sotenkanal, where we were offered a tow as sailing is not allowed. One day when close reaching a vicious wave landed on top of the bow cover, starting one corner. The wind soon blew the rest out of its waterproof tape, letting in a lot of spray and wetting our stowage space. We spent the rest of the day scraping off the tape with quix and saucepan handles and tying the cover on again with strings led under the boat (which proved excellent seaweed collectors). After the Sotenkanal we found a lovely alternative way into Smogen through Hasselosund, an old fishing village built either side of a gut two metres deep and five metres wide. Our way out of Smogen was novel too though no boat bigger than Eel could have managed it.

Returning to our small-boat museum at Bassholmen we photographed Eel with her small-boat ‘friends’ and saw what we could of the museum through the windows, as it was shut again. Then we found a new way out of Strommarna and ran south through Gullholmen and Mollosund, pretty fishing villages, the latter notable for the sight and smell of cod drying on wooden racks. We stayed the night at the beginning of the Toftosund. The RCC FPI describes this channel as twisty and incredibly narrow in places, but we had to beat through it next morning. We then visited Astol, rather disappointing, and Marstrand, less crowded this time, but still hardly welcoming. With some time in hand we decided to approach Gothenburg from behind, going up the northern branch of the Gota River and coming down the south. So next morning we started beating up the attractive reed-fringed river against a considerable stream.

Four miles and five hours later we reached a dam. We’d thought it was a bridge, but the chart actually said “damm/Klaffbro” (dam/lifting bridge). The dam appeared to stretch right across the river except for a narrow five metre gap. Through this gap flowed a river the size of the Thames with a drop of about a foot. We rowed up close, with a faint hope of rowing or warping through. We soon gave that up. Seeing our predicament a fisherman offered us a tow. At the end of our longest warp he got his speed boat on the plane and Eel as near planing as she’ll ever get. Heading for the gap we hit the stream suddenly, sheered violently from side to side then shot out the other side, still moving at high speed. In complete contrast we spent that night in our most peaceful anchorage looking out at a ruined castle through the reeds over mirror calm water.

Our last day saw us to the confluence at Kungalv guarded by an impressive castle, then down river to Gothenburg and a berth beside Viking, the Eriksson four masted barque. Eel had covered 680 miles in 38 days, nearly 18 miles a day at an average speed of 21/3 knots.