The Best made Plans ....
We set off for Germany intending to do an extended trip lasting 12 days. In the time since we had booked the ferry to Esbjerg everything had gone wrong.
First I put my fingers through the gunwale, it had rotted through from the inside. Then as I had moved house recently I was having a garage/workshop built and this was delayed, so it was May before I could do any work on the boat. I ordered the wood and started stripping and cleaning the hull, then the wood took longer to arrive than normal. We were developing some new ideas for the boat and try as we might we couldn't get them to work properly and it was only when in frustration I went back to basics that I realised we had been trying to be too clever and simple is usually best. At midnight on the night before we left I was still sewing spray decks and boom tents.
On top of all this there was foot and mouth, how did that affect a trip in a foreign country? ……. At the time Denmark and Germany were not happy about people bringing in their own food. I had planned to use my dehydrator to dry a lot of food to save time with the shopping and save space in the boat. Because of foot and mouth we had to plan to shop in Flensburg on the Saturday and set off on the Sunday.
Then on our route from Leicester to Harwich there were major road works forcing us to detour in a lot of traffic and we made it to the Ferry with 15 minutes to spare.
We landed in Esbjerg and drove south to Flensburg arriving mid afternoon, here we found a misunderstanding. My wife's cousin who lives there wasn't expecting us for another week. But they rose to the occasion and found accommodation for the 3 of us.
Things seemed to settle down and start to work, Irwin took his car out of the garage so that we could prepare our boats sheltered from the torrential rain. Then Saturday we went shopping, Germany has some very nice food but trying to get things that would last without a fridge and fulfil our dietary needs even with a translator was incredibly difficult. It wasn't till later that we found out about the cheap campsites in Denmark.
Food bought and packed everything ready for the Sunday Launch, we settled to watch some German Television. In due course the weather forecast came up and we were warned about a force 12 for the following day. It seemed incredible a hurricane in the Baltic and during our meagre holidays. I have experienced high winds in the region before but not a 12.
Anyway even if they were a bit out force 6 was our upper limit and it was going to be a lot more than that. So we shortened our proposed trip and decided to wait till Monday. Sunday came and went and the wind reached a massive force 4, so weathermen in Germany get it wrong as well. Sunday night we watched the weather forecast again and again it predicted a force 12 for the next day. Monday came and went and the wind again reached a massive force 4.
When on Monday night they again predicted a force 12, the light started to dawn. Roy was first to catch on "why would the Germans use a method of measuring the wind that was devised by an obscure British Admiral?" . I rushed down to the boat took out my anemometer and studied the scales on it, there it was for all to see, a Beaufort force 4 corresponds to 12 metres per second of wind. The German force 12 was the equivalent of our force 4 and we had just wasted 2 more days.
So we decided that short of an actual force 12 Beaufort we were going to launch Tuesday …….and launch we did.
Sandbar Riddle
It was mid-day Tuesday by the time we launched from the beach at Wassersleben, there had been some rain but now the sun was shining and there was a light breeze from the Southwest.
Our planned lunch stop was to be the Ochseninseln (Oxen Islands) as we had heard that the best hot-dog stand in Denmark was on the mainland just behind them. We set off on slightly differing routes, Roy going out wide to the East and myself pointing directly at the now renamed Hot-Dog Isles.
Roy found more wind further out and quickly got ahead. I was just enjoying a mug of coffee from my flask when I noticed an official looking powerboat. It was coming out of the German side and heading towards Roy. It had Roy worried too and he quickly veered towards the Danish side of the Förde. The power boat turned and disappeared towards Flensburg, so we will never know if it was investigating us or not. But it mattered little as all our papers were in order.
Roy then turned for the "hotdog isles" and our courses converged. As we approached the islands, the wind became very fickle, and we ghosted along for a while before it finally disappeared completely, leaving us to paddle to the shore. We secured the canoes and walked to Annie's Kiosk. The descriptions had not been exaggerated, as these hot dogs were superb and very reasonably priced.
As we were finishing our feast the rain returned, but we were already wearing our waterproofs so we didn't rush for shelter like everyone else. A stroll back to the boats and the rain stopped, then the wind dropped again and we set off with the merest zephyr of a breeze. I caught it first and started to pull away from Roy, then after a while Roy picked up a stronger wind and came past me at about twice my speed. Despite him passing within 10 feet of me, his stronger wind didn't touch me and he was ahead by an appreciable distance before my wind increased.
By the time we were two-thirds of the way across the Förde, the wind had reached about Force 4, and we were scooting along at a good speed when a much stronger gust hit me and lifted the Legend onto the plane. With the bow wave from behind the centre thwart and the gap between Roy and me closing rapidly, I let out a 'whoop' which Roy heard and braced himself for the gust. As quickly as it arrived the gust went, without touching Roy, it just dropped me back to the previous speed and disappeared.
As we approached the Glücksburg Peninsular the wind increased and so did our apprehension, Roy was broad reaching and I was running, and we both thought of the gibe to come when we rounded the end of the peninsula.
The Admiralty charts showed a narrow spit of land sticking out a short way from the end of the Northwest corner of the peninsula, and we both thought this would be the place where we would need to gibe. As we approached Roy was on my port side and I saw his rudder lift and then drop. I thought he must have had a problem with it, but when he sailed on I guessed he had sorted it out. On my starboard side I saw some gulls wading ankle deep some feet from the end of the spit. I was surprised that the charts hadn't indicated a sandbar, but I allowed plenty of room for it to shelve out, as I turned to go well clear of where the birds were standing all clustered together in one spot.
I was distracted for a moment as the whole flock took to the air, and I didn't see the rest of the bank until I was sitting on it. It apparently continued for a couple of hundred yards. To save the rudder from damage I quickly raised it, and tried to push off with my paddle, but I had been travelling quite fast when I hit it and was securely grounded.
Roy seemed to have hit a thinner part of the bank and appeared to have brushed over it, with only the raising of the rudder and then lowering again when clear to show for it.
The sandbar caught me out as well. I had intended to take the same route as John attempted, but spotted the birds walking and sheered off. The bar was visible, but the waves were not breaking on it. After reaching along its length for a while, I decided it couldn't be that shallow and turned to cross, expecting only to scrape the rudder. Either I misjudged the depth of water or "Elfwyn's" laden draught, because the hull stuck and she began to swing broadside on.
I always keep a paddle where it can be grabbed in a hurry, and a quick jab on the sand stopped the swing. The bar was quite narrow at this point, so the next wave lifted "Elfwyn" clear.
It wasn't until I was over the bar that I saw the buoy (a small black one) marking the end. The change in the colour of the water was also obvious from the back. I had crossed about 100 metres short.
The sandbar was about twenty yards wide and too shallow to sail off, so as it was only a few inches deep I got out and pushed. Without my weight the Legend floated easily and was soon in deep enough water to sail. Back in the boat again with the wind now increasing to about a Force 6 (Beaufort), I put in a reef and released the rudder line, then watched as the rudder refused to drop back into the water. It even resisted efforts with a paddle to knock it down.
Roy had sailed on, but in the wind and waves lost sight of me when I lowered my sail to reef, and fearing the worst tacked back to offer help, reefing as he came head to wind.
There was a small group of people watching us from the shore, and I swear a few cameras came out as we tried to round the Glücksburg Peninsula. It would have made some interesting pictures.
The wind was now topping Force 6 and seemed to be following the Förde, so it was blowing across the end of the peninsula at a diagonal. Our sails were still set on the starboard side, as they had been for most of the day. The rain had returned with a vengeance. The waves were over 3 feet high, steep and rolling straight onto the end of the peninsula. The tops were blowing off and into the Legend, which was broadside to them, with me kneeling in the lee side, paddle steering and holding the mainsheet in my teeth.
As my rudder was functional I had less difficulty keeping the waves on my port quarter. They were on the steep side and moving faster than the boat, which I had not experienced before. "Elfwyn" wasn't taking any water aboard, but there was plenty in the bottom already from the earlier beat. I had left the leeboard down when I turned downwind. This steadied and slowed the boat. I hoped it would also mitigate the effects of an accidental jibe. Despite this extra drag I was still catching John, finally passing him just after rounding the second point. As the wind dropped I gibed to follow the land round, using the leeboard to absorb the roll.
I am sure I heard a cheer as we rounded the second corner of the peninsula and sneaked into the lee of the land.
From too much wind we now had none and we were both soaked through, our waterproofs were not at fault, but the rain and sea found every chink in our armour, every unfastened cuff or loose collar, and flooded through it. As the rain had stopped and there was now no wind we dropped the rigs and paddled to warm up, convinced that it was not far to the Holnis Beach, and the campsite with hot food and drinks.
As we paddled I looked for recognisable landmarks, I had been here once 10 years before. Nothing looked right and I started to wonder if we were in the right place. As we passed Drei we saw a man exercising his dog, so I paddled over to ask for directions.
When you take a foreign language course, they tell you what to ask and they give you a range of possible answers, all very helpful. The problems start when the person you are asking hasn't attended the same course, so his answer might as well be in Martian for all the sense it makes.
"Gutten Tag" I said "Moign Moign" he replied, I wasn't thrown by this as I had come across this greeting before, it is quite common in Flensburg.
"Wo ist de camping platz bitte?" I asked "khlllninn sxxsxyyyww" is what I think he replied "enschuldegung bitte?" I said. Then in the midst of a lot of unrecognisable words I understood one "gerade aus" straight on. Looking straight on I could see two possible places so I ventured again "Die Erste?"(the first), I think he had grasped by now that I had limited German as he replied "nein" and pointed to the second port. So now we knew where the campsite was, I thanked him and set off across the bay to the site he had indicated.
But it still didn't look right, when we landed at the beach next to the campsite, there was a life-ring hung in its mounts with "Bokholmwik" written around its edge. This was not where we were supposed to be. I looked at the charts and soon realised what had happened. In the extremis of rounding the point we had sailed right past the intended landing site and paddled several miles further than we needed too.
This was a bit daft, as I had a GPS. However, thanks in part to the lack of grid on most German maps, the campsite was not programmed in.
Too late to worry now, we put on some warm dry clothes and had coffee from our flasks, topped with a little malt whisky, to warm the cockles. Then using my mobile I rang Maja (my wife), who was waiting at her cousin's house in Flensburg, and told her where to pick us up. Then the rain returned so we had a very wet wait.
When she arrived she told us of the World Trade Centre attack -
- this was Tuesday 11 September 2001.
Return to Flensburg
We took a couple of days to dry all our kit and prepare the boats again. Then we set off from Wassersleben for a short sail of some 4 miles into Flensburg. Again we set off on slightly differing courses, with Roy going out wide again and myself preferring the more direct route.
After a comfortable beat at a diagonal across the Förde, I looked around for Roy. I was a bit concerned when I could not see his distinctive white Junk type sails. After a few moments of searching I spotted the sails being hoisted again, with a reef in them. I was a bit surprised, as I was quite happy at full sail.
I resumed my course, and after nearing the eastern side of the Förde tacked and headed back across. Then Roy was missing again, and it was a while before I spotted him sheltering behind a fence, which extended into the Förde. I immediately turned again to head towards him and, fearing the worst, was spying out the land for an access point for the car, when he sailed out again, this time with both reefs in - we had always said that if we had to reef to the second reef point, that was the time to look for shelter.
Later Roy told me that several gusts which he thought to be over Force 6 had hit him and nearly put him over. But I was still at full sail and had experienced no problems, probably because I was sailing much closer to the wind and luffing up every time the wind increased.
The wind was at least twice as strong as we had off Holnis, although less steady and raising less sea in the restricted waters. I reefed first time because the boat felt over-powered and I thought she might sail better, then put the next reef in when the halyards began to howl! Another first.
We continued to sail, and on my next attempt to sail across to the west side I was caught by dirty air coming off the big shipyard building. I lost way to such an extent that my tack back to the east finished where the previous tack, from that side, had started. I had sailed east to west and west to east right across the Förde, and made no ground to windward.
The combination of wind following the Förde and the reflected wind from the building made the approach to the narrows very difficult under sail.
I started to sail back to the east side where there was cover from the land, with the idea that I might paddle into the narrows. But as I reached the cover of the land I realised that there was a usable breeze coming from behind some buildings and over a marina. So I short-tacked in this area confined by the wind, until I was nearly at the corner on an east-west tack, then tightened everything up and made a dash across the open end of the narrows.
The return tack showed I had made it into the narrows and was heading straight for the Customs Post, some of the inhabitants came out in a hurry to watch these crazy Englishmen in their little boats. At about this time I crossed tacks with a cruiser, he was sailing under jib alone but still setting considerably more sail area than I was.
We crossed tack for tack, sometimes him giving way and sometimes me. But he wasn't paying close attention to his sails, and when I noticed a flicker along the foot of my Junk style rig I turned directly towards where the wind had been blowing from and, thanks to a slight shift and a backing wind from a large building, was able to sail straight along the Förde and get several tacks ahead of him. This proved to be too much for him, so he started his engine and motored in.
With the distraction I had lost sight of Roy again, and it was a while before I spotted him in a marina hoisting his now-unreefed sails. The wind now dropped right off as we got closer to the end of the valley that harbours Flensburg. I tacked close to the floating Chinese Restaurant and lost the wind almost totally. Just enough was left to turn and trickle away. A slight increase in the middle of the Förde kept me going until I was passing the Historic Boats Museum Harbour.
Then I heard a gull calling and it sounded like it was saying Roy. (I know some tribes of North American Indian believe that if you hear the Owl call your name, you are going to die!) But I have never heard about this applying to gulls and someone else's name. So I listened: there it was again - then it said "Johhhhhn … Royyyyyy" and it sounded uncannily like my wife. I looked at Roy and he was paddling towards the end of the landing stage which I had passed a while before, I then saw Maja standing on the end of the landing stage waving. She had found the perfect place for us to take out, right next to the "James Caird II".
We dropped our sails and landed, the car was in easy reach and the locals didn't object to us landing there. So a good day's sailing was had and a nice touch for the take-out, landing next to the replica of one of history's most famous open boats.
John Tompkins canoe_sailor@hotmail.com
Uploaded 25th April, 2002.