Bergen to Shetland. Again.

Two years ago I was lucky enough to find myself sailing the Bergen to Shetland race with the crew of Kelso, a Crown 38 harbored outside of Bergen in Norway.

Despite the fact my first time sailing across the North Sea was long, cold and miserable, when Jon, the owner of Kelso, asked if I might be up for sailing the race again this summer, I of course said yes enthusiastically.

It turns out I like long, cold and miserable things.

Additionally, with more time to prep I could actually purchase and wear my own foul weather gear this time.  And, most importantly, I could go back to the Shetland Islands to track down a Shetland pony in a sweater, as promised on the tourist brochure I saw last time I was there.

I really wanted to see a Shetland pony in a sweater.

With these goals in mind, I booked a ticket to Bergen, Norway, pretty much on the other side of the world from Hawaii.

Given that there is no way to make 30+ hours on a plane sound interesting I’ll just fast forward to my arrival in Norway where Jon picked me up from the airport and we drove straight to the boat to meet the crew and go over our safety procedures.

It was ostensibly summer in Norway but when I landed it was cold and rainy.  Having been to Norway before, I was prepared for this.  I had brought all my winter clothing with me.

As we arrived at the boat, it was pouring rain.  However, such conditions do not deter Norwegians from being outside.  Norwegians are, amongst the hardest core people I have ever met.  They just take being outside in inclement conditions as a fact of life.

Just a normal summer day in Norway

Given half our crew was non-Norwegian, we met inside where it was dry to go over the initial race information.

Jon began by introducing the Kelso crew for this year’s Bergen to Shetland race to each other. 

First and foremost, (though we all knew him so he technically didn’t introduce himself) was the boat owner and skipper, Jon, who, while not actually Norwegian, has lived in Norway for a sufficient number of years to have adopted all the hard core habits of the culture.  Like being able to capsize a boat into freezing water, get soaking wet, and sill continue to race for a couple hours without dying of hypothermia (this did not happen on the 38 foot boat just to alleviate any possible concerns).  Also, he can fix anything.

Jon Driving at the start

Returning to Norway

Second is Rune.  I was off to a better start this year because last time I thought Rune’s name was Luna for the first three days of our trip. Which is a pretty name of course.

Rune trimming the jib

Rune owns his own boat that he is outfitting for a cruise from Norway to the Caribbean via assorted ports in Europe.  I only found this out half way through our trip because Rune doesn’t really say much, except to occasionally introduce some amazing fact about his history as if it were nothing.  As in casually mentioning that he had to make a choice between becoming a professional horse race gambler and some other career.  

He chose IT.

Third, the other Norwegian on the boat was Ole Morten, who until the day before our race was a teacher.  However, he retired and immediately got on a sailboat for a 30+ hour race.  See what I mean by hard core people?

Ole Morten looked exactly like what I would imagine a Norwegian seafarer would look like, even though technically he was a teacher.

Ole Morten

Jon decided that he, Rune and Ole Morten would make up one of the three-person watches because they could all speak Norwegian together.

Jon, as I have mentioned, counts as Norwegian because he has lived in Norway for so long and speaks Norwegian.

The second watch and the remainder of the crew hailed from a variety of countries -- Hawaii, Australia, and Québec respectively.   Our common language was English, even though Ben of course spoke French.  Also, he spoke Spanish but since nobody else spoke Spanish we stuck with English.

We had thought that dividing by language would help with some of the sailing communication.  Except it turns out that there are differences between Australian and American sailing terminology too.

Peter, the Australian, was in Norway on an extended trip visiting his family.   

Peter driving

Peter trimming the main

His father had emigrated from Norway to Australia after the Second World War but had extensive extended family in Norway, mostly involved in salmon fishing in one way or another.  In Australia, Peter is in a sailboat syndicate.  Meaning that he co-owns a sailboat with a group of folks and thus has the opportunity to sail while collaborating on boat maintenance.  He has raced the Sydney-Hobart race multiple times – a race that all sailors look to as one of the penultimate races to do.

Ben was the youngest crew member who was in Norway from Canada to study International Business.  He had just completed his summer studies and had a bit of time before he had to return to Canada.  International business was really Ben’s second career – he had spent the first 10 or so years as a wildlife biologist studying birds though he didn't look old enough to be on a second career. 

Ben at the start of the return

Motoring to the start of the race

There were lots of birds on our trip and so Ben was a source of vital information, of which I retained none.  

Then me, of course.

So, with the introductions completed, Jon got down to the business of the race. 

The race is 198 nautical miles from the coast of Norway to Lerwick, the capital of the Shetland Islands.   The weather was supposed to be good with solid winds until closer to our destination when it was supposed to lighten considerably.  It was likely the fastest boats would get through before the wind shut off, meaning the time between their finish and our own would grow considerable.  A more updated weather report would be provided at the skippers meeting the next day.

With the basics of the race out of the way, we moved on to the most critical part of the planning - food for the trip.  I have food control issues. 

There was some debate about how many loaves of bread we needed to bring because Norwegians eat a lot of bread.

Also, they eat a lot of salmon. 

We decided that Jon and I would pick up freeze dried dinners – not particularly the best food in the world, but it is easy to boil water and in rough conditions sometimes that is about all you can (or want) to do.  We would also get the bread. Ben volunteered to pick up the breakfast and lunchmeats and cheeses. 

I was a bit worried about this because I didn’t know Ben at this point and he is skinny. Not that being skinny necessarily means you don’t care about food, but it suggested to me that maybe he didn’t care about food.  Also, it is hard to trust total strangers to supply your food when you are going to be trapped on a sailboat for some yet to be determined number of hours.

However, it turned out I had nothing to fear – Ben is my food soul mate except he is skinny. He also does not like to be hungry and so was the perfect person to have buying food for the trip.  Not only did he show up with ample food for the trip but he also baked blueberry muffins and boiled eggs for the first morning. I'm pretty sure I've never met a man who made blueberry muffins before.   It was marvelous.

Lest I be distracted by food, after our prep discussions, we went down to the boat to go over some of the safety procedures.

The boat is outfitted with jack lines and it was expected that whenever we were anywhere above deck that we would be clipped onto the boat – either to the jack line if outside the cockpit or to one of the many points to which to clip if inside the cockpit. 

The jackline is the black strap along the side.

Jon clipping the life preserver.

The life preservers we would also wear any time we were on deck included the clips that could be attached to the jack lines.  

Jon demonstrating how to clip in to the cockpit area.

While it is understandable that one would want to remain on the boat instead of falling into the North Sea where death would be inevitable in a very short period of time (and sadly we had to listen to a failed rescue over the radio while heading to Lerwick), attaching oneself to the boat and then trying to move around with any form of efficiency is simply a pain in the ass.

After going over how these devices worked, we talked briefly about the overboard drill in case someone did by chance fall off the boat and for some reason wasn’t attached by their jackline being drug by their life jacket in the water alongside the boat.  

A man (or woman) overboard drill involves a series of important steps because of course it is assumed that we would be under sail when such an event happened and so most likely going directly away from the person who fell off the boat.  Thus, first, the boat would have to be stopped. If we were on our three person watches there would need to be a way to drive the boat, keep an eye on the person overboard, and get the rest of the crew up on deck to help retrieve said person.

Jon walked us through how to use the life preserver to attach to someone in order to haul them back on board.

Jon demonstrating how to lift someone out of the water

Fortunately, we did not have to attempt such a rescue.

We then went over where assorted emergency equipment was and stuff like that.  It is all labeled in Norwegian so I just hoped someone who could read the chart was awake in any given emergency.

Boat plan -- in Norwegian

After our boat call time (8:00 am) was determined for the race, we split up for the night.

Night in Norway is a nominal term because it doesn’t get very dark until very late.  In fact, at one level it doesn’t get dark at all.

The next day involved prepping for the race.  Because I was staying with Jon, I got to help with the stuff he had to do.  Mostly I just wanted to not be in the way.  This is actually a life philosophy.

We bought the freeze-dried food, including “Game Stew” a meal that has Reindeer in it. 

We bought 4 loaves of bread and about 6 packages of tortilla wraps and determined this would be enough for at least the way to the Shetlands -- a little less than one loaf per person. We then went to the boat to do some final organization and move the boat to a boating club closer to the start where the skippers meeting would be later that afternoon.

Moving the boat involved a couple hours of motor sailing through the islands surrounding the Norwegian coast – on a beautiful and sunny day.  It was a terrible chore.  We also had to get fuel and water because the rules required that we begin the race with full tanks of both.  Though we forgot the water.

Norway combines two of my favorite things -- rocks and water.

Typical Norwegian scene as seen from the water.

The entire country looks like this.

We arrived and rafted our boat alongside the numerous others that were in the harbor for the race.

I had never been to a skippers meeting before – because in Hawaii the big boy sailors go to the meetings, not the peon crew.  The same is true in Norway, but because I was there, Jon invited me to attend the skippers meeting with him.

Given the fact there were a few non-Norwegian boats entered in the race, the meeting was held in English.   

We were welcomed to the 30^th year of the Bergen-Shetland race, at least according to some.  Evidently, it depends on how you count, so it might be only the 29^th year, but since everything was already labeled with the number 30, they determined such debates should be left for the bar.  The room was packed with sailors and there was a powerpoint about the weather.  

Slide demonstrating the wind conditions for the race.

We were warned to avoid the boats doing seismic activity testing, whatever that was.

It was warm and everyone was talking in soothing voices and I promptly fell asleep. 

So much for gleaning important race information and demonstrating my tactical skills.

 With the skippers meeting over, we returned to Jon’s house were we prepared our gear for the race.

The boat call the next morning was early because we had to motor an hour or so to the start.  The weather was gray and overcast but at least not raining. 

As we motored towards the start we all began to put on our multiple layers of gear.  Getting dressed for cold weather sailing is sort of like (I would imagine) getting dressed for a 19^th century ball if you are a woman.  There are multiple layers of clothing plus the big outer layers plus the life jacket and the safety lines to clip on after.  Plus hats and gloves and stuff.  Plus boots of course.

I purchased my foul weather gear in white, and in a relatively large size because you have to put lots of layers on underneath.  By the time I had two shirts, one down coat, and my outer layer of white foul weather gear on, I looked sort of like a Yeti.    

Looking like the Yeti is of course a look you should go for if you are a single woman in your 40s.  

Me in my full Yeti outfit -- with life preserver and jackline clips.

Getting ready to get hoisted up the mast in an extra 10 pounds of gear....

The clothing plus having to be attached to the boat guarantees that nothing happens quickly. 

Because this race is basically a straight line between the start and the finish on what sailors call a reach (meaning the wind is coming at the boat from a side angle), this is what Jon called a “drag race” to the finish.  We will follow the rhumb line, which is a nautical term for crossing all meridians of longitude at the same angle, but sounds suspiciously like rum, which sailors like to drink and so I confused the two for quite some time.

Jon and Peter discussing the race

As the start drew nearer, we began to do what sailboats do during the start to a race – sail around.  

The start

However, you sail with additional focus the closer to the start you get. 

Ben keeping tabs on the starting line

There is much to think about during the run up to the start – what approach do you want to take to the starting line in terms of wind angles and the other boats?  How far back do you need to be in order to reach the starting line as the gun sounds but not too soon so that you will have to slow down or circle back around or go over the starting line early.   Where will the other boats be?

Getting ready for the start

Discussion revolves around these tactical decisions. I play no part in this discussion.  I timed our runs to the start. 

Then, of course because it was entirely distracting, Orca whales began to surface all around the boat.  I do not know if Orcas are a sign of good luck or not, but suffice it to say that seeing a bunch of them amidst the sailboats was pretty awesome.  I did not get a picture of the Orcas.  My camera is too slow and it is super hard to get a picture of a whale breaching with a slow camera. 

After timing our approach and circling back multiple times, we entered the final minute and began racing to the start, along with all other 40+ boats.  Starts are very exciting.

We all passed the starting line and nobody was over early and so the 192 nautical miles of racing began.

We kept them in sight for hours.

Some people had asymmetrical sails.

Immediately the fast boats were pretty much small specks on the horizon.

Ok... this boat was with us most of the race.

The wind was somewhere between 15 and 20 knots so quite a bit of breeze but the sea wasn’t incredibly rough, thankfully.  Still, it was rough enough that Ben who was on the bow was doused in cold North Sea water before we were even 10 minutes into the race.  I felt guilty about this because my foul weather gear was way better than his.  Sorry Ben!

Ben on the bow

We decided to do a sail change from our smaller sail (because we were playing it conservatively at the start) to our larger jib.

This took about 20 minutes.

Then the excitement was over and we all settled onto the rail where we were occasionally doused by waves.  I was immediately able to test on my new foul weather gear because I took the foremost spot to see if I would stay dry.

Everyone on the rail (mostly)

In my Yeti outfit I also served as a fairly large block between the waves and the rest of the crew.

For the next few hours we practiced our hiking skills (when you lean off the side of the boat to help off set the heel caused by the wind) and our sleeping on the rail skills.  At least I practiced the sleeping on the rail skills.  Everybody else seemed pretty awake.

We then engaged in assorted viewing activities.

We passed an oil rig in the distance.  That was exciting.

Oil Rig

A big boat hauling something unidentifiable went by.  That was exciting.

I worried the boat in front of us would hit whatever the larger boat was towing...

Ben named all the sea birds we saw.  About a dozen different types it turns out.

We had two watches – the Norwegian watch and the International watch.  The watches were three hours on and three hours off beginning at the start of the race and continuing in that pattern until we finished.  The first few shifts everyone pretty much stayed above decks.  Ben periodically produced food because, like I said, he cares about these things.

Our first hot meal was the freeze dried dinners Jon and I had picked up.  Rune boiled the water for those.  Given that the water was still pretty rough, meaning lots of being tossed about when down below, pouring hot water into a pouch and waiting for the meal to re-hydrate was about all the cooking anyone wanted to do.

I got to eat the Game Stew option – which was reindeer with freeze dried berries -- but just tasted like freeze dried hot food. 

Dinner over, we settled into our shifts and spent an uneventful night sleeping for three hours at a time on an angle. 

Getting in and out of the Yeti outfit took a bit of time and since I wasn’t actually wet, I really only ever took the jacket off – the pants and boots stayed on the entire trip. 

After a night where it never really got dark entirely, our shift emerged in the morning to calm seas, blue skies and no wind.  

Night on the North Sea

We made salmon and cream cheese for breakfast to which Peter, who had been staying with his salmon fishing relatives, noted that he had eaten salmon for every meal for the last two weeks.

One of many salmon meals....

The salmon was very tasty.  

We all sat around in the light air and Jon noted that someone was going to have to go up to the top of the mast because the backstay had gotten caught because of all the flogging caused by the light wind.  It would need to be flipped back into its grove.

The North Sea with no wind.

I of course immediately volunteered for this task.

Me going up the mast.

I can now check off being hauled to the top of a mast in extensive layers of foul weather gear in the middle of the North Sea off the list of things to do in life.  With my Yeti outfit on I was not light.

Ben sitting on the low side.

We then commenced our light air sailing, which mostly meant sitting on the low side of the boat staring at the water.

Trimming in light air is tedious and hard.

I tried to get a good picture of a jellyfish but it was more difficult than it looks when your camera is slow.

Very bad picture of a jellyfish

Then the fog rolled in.

Literally -- we watched it surround us.

 

 

Then after about 6 or so hours the wind shifted a bit and we were able to put up our spinnaker and while we didn’t really go all that much faster, it made us feel better about going so slowly.

Being on the rail in light air.

For the next 12 hours or so, we went between 1 and 3 knots, which is not fast.  I can walk faster than that.  However, as Ben pointed out, I cannot walk on water.

Finally, we could see the coast of the Shetland Islands and the race was nearing its finish.

Do not comment on the spin trim... notice the land in the distance.

Shetland Islands

Jon decided to end the race by playing chicken with the tanker.

Motored in beside us being picturesque

Lerwick

After 33.5 hours, we crossed the finish line and we were not even last!

Other boats that got there before us.

Additionally, it was still a relatively normal time in the evening and so we were able to drink the welcome bottle of vodka provided by the race committee (drinking it with grape juice did not make it better).

Shetland Island Vodka -- but they make Scotch too.

We also perused the duty free list provided with our welcome packet because it turns out that this race isn’t just about who can get to the Shetlands the fastest, but also who can carry the most alcohol back to Norway and still win.

You see, Norway is close to the perfect country but the taxes in Norway on alcohol are high. They are not so high in the Shetlands. The Norwegians planned to stock up.  Everyone else was doing it too.

Because we had arrived at a reasonable time – somewhere like 6:30 pm, I had assumed that we would somehow be processed by Scottish immigration.  After all, I’m an American who has just sailed from Norway to Scotland and so some sort of immigration process seemed in order.

The race committee informed us, however, that we should show up at the little kiosk that was their headquarters tomorrow around 10 am to meet with the immigration folks. We were free to leave the boat tonight, however, and do whatever we wanted.

Evidently the Shetland Islands are not so militant about their immigration security.

So, after drinking our vodka, we disembarked from the boat, which required us to walk over two other boats to get to shore since being almost last means you have to raft up to the boats who got there before you.  We didn’t win, but we did get to walk across one of the open 40 boats that did win.  I think at least they won.  

We made it to the yacht club for some beer and food.  

The yacht club door is very unobtrusive.

The race included a free dinner, which both Ben and I appreciated.

Given how tired we all were, we ended up not staying super late, but went back to the boat and crashed.

The lack of consciousness by all parties ended the first leg of the race.

The next day was our only full day in the Shetland Islands and Peter had coordinated a car rental prior to our departure for Norway so that we could go on a tour before the awards ceremony that night.

First, however, we had breakfast at the Havely Café – which I remembered from my last trip very fondly because while the people of the Shetland Islands may at times think of themselves as Norwegian, they like tea.

 

Havely means protection from the sea in Norwegian so it is a very nicely named place to eat. 

After breakfast, Peter, Ben and I walked to where we could pick up the car.  Peter had requested a van that would seat all six of us.  The rental car agency also doubled as the local duck egg distributor. 

While Peter and I rented the van, Ben went and got more food for the day. Having made basically this same trip two years ago, I distinctly remember a lack of food options and given that Ben and I both care a lot about eating regularly, I figured we should stock up.

As we waited for Ben to get out of the store next to the car rental, Peter and I examined our rental vehicle. Our giant blue van seemed to be a commercial van and it came with a flashing yellow light on top.  

Our rental van with the flashing light.

 Perhaps tourists were provided with flashing yellow lights, it was unclear. 

We took our van back to the harbor to pick up the rest of the crew  and do our immigration thing.  We could not be real tourists until after we could legally enter the country. Aside from the fact we had already been wandering allover Lerwick for the last 18 hours of course.

Once the international bureaucracy was out of the way.

Our first stop was the duty free store.   

Duty Free store with a pick up truck called "Barbarian" in front.

We had heard that you shouldn’t wait on the duty free thing or else the lines might get long and we might not get what we wanted.  So, we drove to the duty free store, located in a random neighborhood and put in our orders to be delivered to the boat the next day.

With the priority shopping completed, we then made our way to Scalloway – the first stop on our whirlwind tour of the Shetland Islands.

We were going to Scalloway because it hosts a memorial to the WWII fighters who braved the North Sea during the winter to run guns and supplies to occupied Norway and to bring refugees from Norway to the Shetland Islands.  For the most part, these activities were conducted by small fishing vessels and civilian crews, coordinated by the British and later Norwegian military over the course of several winters.  Many sailors lost their lives conducting these expeditions due to the hazardous sea conditions and of course the Nazis.  Having just sailed across the North Sea in the summer and experienced its frigid waters first hand, I have enormous respect for the heroism of these sailors.

Memorial to the sailors who braved the winter weather during WWII to fight the Nazis in Norway.

Peter’s Dad had been part of this resistance and so coming to Scalloway and seeing the museum there and the memorial was especially important for him.

I was immediately distracted by the non-sweater wearing Shetland ponies in the pasture next to the museum.

Pony outside the museum.

The Scalloway museum included an overview of the history of the Shetland Islands from its first inhabitants to the WWII story.  History seemed to stop there but you could buy some nice things in the gift shop.  The bulk of the museum was about WWII and I purchased the book, The Shetland Bus, so I could read more about the events that had transpired.  

I also purchased a postcard of sheep in sweaters though I have yet to even see any sheep.  The Shetlands are known for their wool products. 

After the museum we wandered over to the castle.  

The Castle

The castle was used during WWII to hold military supplies.  I learned that from reading The Shetland Bus.

After viewing the memorial, the castle, and the museum, we got back into the van and headed out towards the far southern tip of the island – Sumburgh Head – where there is a lighthouse and lots of puffins. 

On the way there, we made a slight detour to St. Ninian’s Isle – hosting the largest active sand tombolo in the UK.  None of us knew what a sand tombolo was but decided it must mean a stretch of sand connecting two land masses with water on each side. 

We all got out of the car to walk across it. 

Walking across the tombolo (assuming a tombolo is a stretch of sand).

Ben went to look for birds.

We then got back in the van to continue to Sumburgh. 

I was very excited to go back to Sumburgh because of the puffins.  The puffins were all over and they are adorable.  Ben was in bird heaven.  The rest of us relied upon his expertise to identify all the non-puffin birds that were around.

Puffin motherload.

Beautiful coastline where Puffins live.

Puffin looking one direction.

Then the other.

Then flapping its wings.

Jon being anti-authoritarian.

Jon mocking the warning sign.

On the way back towards Lerwick to attend the awards we stopped at a Viking tourist attraction but since it cost money we decided not to go.  Instead I took more pictures of ponies not wearing sweaters.

What would you call a baby Shetland Pony?

Viking ruins demonstrating the Shetland connection to Norway.

Then we headed back to town to attend the awards ceremony where we were served a variety of canapés most of which were made out of salmon.  

To get back we had to cross the runway for the airport.

The awards was pretty short but included an official dignitary of Lerwick basically saying that after the Brexit vote, which had happened the day before, it may be that Scotland would vote to leave the UK which would mean the Shetland Islands would want to leave Scotland and finally return to Norway (hint, hint to all the Norwegians in the room). 

It turns out that the Shetland islands were put into hock by Norwegian royalty when they had to raise the money to sell off a Princess in marriage.  Since the Norwegians were low on cash, they gave the Scottish the islands until they could raise the cash.  However, when Norway finally had the money to pay the bride price, the Scottish where like, no, we want to keep the Islands.

The Shetlanders didn’t have a say. 

So the Shetlanders have an affinity for Norway.  Brexit might be their way out.

Anyway, we were not going to win any awards and were just there for the free food and wine and of course to support the winners.

The team that won had matching outfits.

I actually don't know if they won... but they had very fancy matching puffy coats.

We looked less official.

My favorite picture -- it not only demonstrates my inability to take a selfie but our crew's lack of matching outfits. The others are standing over to the left.

After the ceremony ended, we ditched the rental van in the parking lot and walked back to the boat where we continued our own personal celebration by drinking beer and wine and talking about sailing and politics and stuff. 

I didn’t stay in the boat that night, but had booked a hotel a little further away than I had anticipated so I said goodnight to everyone around 10:30 (it was still light) and went to pick up the van to drive over to my hotel.  The hotel was just a little creepy -- pretty much empty except for me and decorated to emulate a horror movie.

Hotel hallway

I can also take driving a manual transmission commercial vehicle with a flashing yellow light on the wrong side of the road in the middle of the night off my list of things to do in life.  Fortunately, Peter had already discovered how to put the thing into reverse or I never would have gotten anywhere.

The next day we had most of the day to ourselves because the race back began at 4 PM.  In the morning I checked out of the hotel, went to the grocery store to get food for the return, and then took the rental car back to its rightful owners. We had breakfast again at the Havely café because it is just a cool place. 

Then I wandered around town since we had lots of time to kill prior to the beginning of a race.  Most importantly, I went into the visitors center where, I discovered, they were selling tea towels with Shetland ponies on them – in sweaters!  

This pony is clearly wearing a sweater.

I had yet to see a Shetland pony in a sweater and yet here they were on the tea towels.  I of course had to purchase some.

As I went to check out I asked the man helping me – “So, I’ve been looking for Shetland ponies in sweaters, how come I have not seen any?”

He looked at me as if I were crazy and replied, “Shetland ponies don’t wear sweaters.”

Clearly this went against the evidence of the tea towel I was just now purchasing.

“But,” I said, “these ponies are wearing sweaters.”

He sort of paused and then said, “Well, those ponies were raised sort of like dogs – their names are Vitamin (though he said it vit a myn) and Fivla.  Most ponies wouldn’t tolerate sweaters.  After all, they can survive the winters here outside.  That’s the whole point.”

The mystery of the Shetland pony in the sweater had been unraveled.  Sadly, it really was just an evil plot to get people to purchase tea towels. 

Which I did.

My mission in the Shetland Islands complete, I went back to the boat to wait out the remainder of the day until the race began.  I was only a little disappointed that more ponies besides Vitamin and Fivla don’t wear sweaters.

As time got closer to the start there was more activity on the boats in the harbor.

The boat(s) next to us were sponsored by the folks that made my boots.

Finally, around 3:00 we untied from the other boats and left the harbor towards the start. 

On the way to the Shetland Islands we had been on a port tack the entire time – which means for the non-sailors that the wind was blowing from the south so that the boat was heeled on the port side for the duration of the race.  Port is left when facing the front of the boat.  The winds had done a 180 degree shift and so we were going to head home on a port tack as well.  At least that didn’t change the way we would have to sleep.  My self-designated bunk was on the port side, which meant that staying in it was at times a challenge.

As we motored out of the harbor we all geared up in our multiple layers again.  At the start we commenced our timing and going back and forth routine.  We had a good start and were in the middle of all the other boats but because we don’t have an asymmetrical sail and many of the others did, we were quickly outpaced.  I have included lots of pictures from the start in no particular order.

 

Still, we were on the way back and settled into our 3-hour watches again.  We attempted to be more diligent in trimming the sails on the return.  Ben took the main and I took the jib for our shifts.  Time just kind of goes by as day turns to night and so forth.

We ate more freeze dried dinners.  Peter got the Game Stew this time.

The morning brought us more salmon for breakfast.

The wind was fairly light throughout the night but we were able to make progress.  Then, the wind began to pick up and by lunchtime it was closer to 20 knots.  The seas were calm and so we were not getting wet, which is an incredible bonus. 

As entertainment, we spent considerable hours listening to the radio as some of the boats in front of us seemed to be unintentionally getting in the way of the seismic testing vessels that we had been warned were in the vicinity and ignoring their radios.  Rune mentioned that he had worked on one of these in the past -- presumably some time after his time as a horse race gambler -- and that the sensors were multiple millions of dollars and so it would not be good to hit one – they are trailing miles behind the boat. 

We were actually quite optimistic about our chances of finishing relatively quickly but, sadly, around 4:30/5 (about 24 hours after the start) the wind died again.

We were, however, able to set the spinnaker, meaning the wind had shifted sufficiently for us to get this sail up.  Because it was so light, however, we attached the lightest of sheets to the sail with a bowline knot.  For the next 4 or so hours we made slow progress, typically under 5 knots. 

At one point, however, the wind shifted and we decided that we needed to gybe the spinnaker.  This entailed tying the other side of the really light sheet to the other side of the sail (it was a really long sheet), gybing and the going back to trimming the spinnaker.  None of us really thought to go detach the other side of the sheet from the sail.  This is important foreshadowing.

We were all taking turns trimming the spinnaker as we gradually made our way towards the Norwegian coast.  Because the fog had set in, we couldn’t see how close we were.

Then, as we neared the shore the fog lifted.  Interestingly, even after 192 nautical miles, we were still able to see the boats in front of us and so I noted to Peter, who was trimming the spinnaker at that moment, that they seemed to have a lot of wind up ahead and that perhaps we should put the regular spinnaker sheet back on the sail.  Which we did.

What we didn’t do, however, was detach the light wind sheet from the other side of the spinnaker and to be honest I had forgotten that it was tied to the other side of the sail at all.

We continued forward and then our 5-7 knots of wind turned into 20 knots.

Jon, who was driving, started to get overpowered and called for the spinnaker to come down.  However, and problematically, the light wind spinnaker sheet was tied with a bowline to the sail and we couldn’t take the sail down until it was removed. 

Dragging my jack line, I made my way to the foredeck and attempted to untie the bowline with one hand while holding onto the spinnaker pole with another.  This was not working.  Ole Morten then came forward with the knife from the boom and the knife made short work of the sheet and then the sail was ready to be taken down. 

The typical procedure would have been to put the jib up prior to taking the spinnaker down but the winds had gone so high that the current jib on deck wasn’t the correct jib and so the decision had been made to take the spinnaker down and the bring the smaller jib up from down below.

Down came the spinnaker easily enough and Ben pushed the smaller jib up through the front hatch. Ole Morten had not left the foredeck and Peter had come up, making three of us up there, and then there was some Norwegian-English miscommunication about which side of the sail was the tack (the part that goes to the front of the boat) and the clew – the side that goes to the back of the boat.  After some flipping of the sail about, the finish line was in sight and we still didn’t have the sail up.  Given that we had just been sailing for 30 hours, and the finish line was in sight, it was decided not to put a jib up at all.

We thus crossed the finish line rather ignobly under main sail only in front of the Norwegian coast guard because they were the finish boat.  Nobody stamped my passport or presumably even knew I was in the country because the Norwegians don’t seem to care at all about borders.  

The finish boat was the Norwegian Coast Guard

And this incredibly picturesque lighthouse.

The race was done, but we still had almost 2 hours to motor to where the boat would be kept.   

We celebrated by eating salmon sandwiches. 

Our finish time was around 11 PM and we finally got to the dock around 1 PM.  There was then some confusion about rides and who was going with whom and such.

I was pretty exhausted and, since much of these discussions happened in Norwegian, had not been paying much attention.  There were quick goodbyes to everyone and then Jon and I got into the car of some people I had never seen before with their giant dog.  I was sitting in the back crammed up against a bunch of stuff with my gear on my lap, still in my foul weather Yeti outfit.  The couple that picked us up were very friendly and since I was sitting in the back I asked how they were connected to our group – in hopes of figuring out who they were.  The woman in back said she was married to the driver, which while nice, was not helpful, since I had never seen him before either.

However, it was 1:30 am and we had sailed for over 30 hours and were going on limited sleep.

The remainder of the trip to Jon’s house was a surreal conversation about this woman’s children, her job, gardens, her hatred of slugs, and the paternity of her giant dog.

We finally made it back to Jon’s house at about 2 am.  We looked at the race results and they suggested we didn’t do all that well, even though we had thought we had sailed much better on the return.   Jon had some non-alcoholic beers in the refrigerator which we drank because, while not containing alcohol, they were fairly thirst quenching and after 30+ hours on a sailboat the world rocks enough that alcohol isn’t all that necessary.

Finally, around 3 am we called it a night and my second Bergen to Shetland Island race ended. 

I slept until noon the next day and then Jon and I embarked upon the post-race tasks.  First, we had to buy a dehumidifier because somehow the one on the boat had stopped working.  This involved going to several marine stores to find one.  Second, we had to go back to the boat to pick up the sails so we could dry them out at Jon’s house.  We also needed to put the dehumidifier on the boat, clean up anything left behind after our late night exit, and generally make sure everything was in order.

So we made our way back to the boat – in the pouring rain. The sails were now soaking wet because they had been sitting out in the rain all night.   We got everything coordinated and then went over to the awards ceremony even though we did not win anything.

I stayed in Norway for a few more days, wandered around the city, learned to use public transportation, got to go climbing, watched Jon compete in the Snipe national championships, went to the Grieg museum and heard the lunch time concert, saw Jon’s new house that he has bought, and much more.

As I make my way back to Hawaii I think about this race and the connections it has made possible.  This race may happen during the summer and conditions may be relatively mild, but the race itself evokes the harrowing and heroic efforts of the WWII sailors who braved the North Sea in the winter to retain a vital connection between Norway and the Shetland Islands. Or possibly it is just an excuse to get alcohol.  I think about meeting Ole Morten who was quiet and knife wielding.  I think about the fact that Jon and I grew up less than one hundred miles from each other in Washington but it took a Norwegian sailboat race to make our friendship possible and so I of course believe that to meet each other was fate of the most positive kind.  I think about Rune and his forthcoming sailing adventure that I am able to hear about because he is on Facebook now.  I think about meeting yet another amazing French-Canadian (my third of the summer) who is sweet and kind spirited and such a knowledgeable person with whom I share a love for not being hungry.  I think about Peter and his vast sailing knowledge and his connection to Norway that goes back generations to, as he put it, the beginning of when private property was recorded.  I think about all the salmon I ate.

I think of these things and I know that despite the cold and rain if I am asked to show up again I’ll be there. 

Even though I now know that Shetland ponies don’t wear sweaters.