2016: the year of learning.

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Dec 5

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[et_pb_section bb_built="1" admin_label="section" _builder_version="3.0.47"][et_pb_row admin_label="row" _builder_version="3.0.47" background_size="initial" background_position="top_left" background_repeat="repeat"][et_pb_column type="4_4"][et_pb_text _builder_version="3.0.98" background_size="initial" background_position="top_left" background_repeat="repeat" background_layout="light"]It’s been close to 2 years since I last gave news here. Saying that time was lacking would be a weak euphemism, but as we close 2017 and are settling down in our new lives as self-employed and sailors, I thought I’d pick the story up back where I left it.Are you with me? Fasten your seatbelt cause this will be a hell of a ride!May 2016.We get the boat in Stockholm, and we are excited as ever. Our dream is coming true, and our boat arrived! There is a big bird nest in the boom. The toilet is clogged, the sail is filthy green, the canvas are moldy. In an attempt to salvage the canvas, we put it all in the washer and end up shrinking all of it. We order new canvas, for the modest price of… a new car. In the meantime, Ryan has left his job and starts his company.Meanwhile, I start a new job at a new company, working full time.Meanwhile, I’m in the last month of Ironman training.Meanwhile, after three unsuccessful attempts, I sell my apartment, and we move in at Ryan’s.On June 5th of 2016, I’m swimming 3,8km, biking 180km and running a marathon in Nice. On June 7th, we come home, throw ourselves on the couch, and never move again.Ha! Just joking :) Cause we now have time to take care of all the boat maintenance and get to sail our boat for the first time! As I turn Polar Seal into the wind to hoist the mainsail for the very first time, I inexplicably lose control of the steering. Polar Seal fastens in a turning motion, dangerously close to the rocks. So here we are, out on our first sail, the mainsail half hoisted and all over the place, trying to figure out the steering problem, stuck in a spinning 40-foot sailboat, in one of the most trafficked channels of Stockholm’s archipelago. Somewhere between embarrassment and panic, we realize that the winch handle got stuck in the wheel. We remove the winch handle from its pocket, finish hoisting the sail, and enjoy the rest of the ride…. At the blazing speed of 2 knots. Sailing: nailed! It is soon Midsummer in Sweden, and we cannot wait to take Polar Seal out to celebrate the Summer solstice with our friends! But the anchor winch, which drops and lift the anchor, does not work.And with no possibility to operate the anchor, there is no taking the boat out to our friend’s place. Upon close inspection, the contact of the anchor remote seems too corroded to work.Ryan orders the replacement piece with extra-fast delivery so that we can make the repair in time for midsummer. The piece arrives, we have to weld it. We buy a welding iron, crawl down in our deep and narrow anchor locker, and just CAN’T figure out how to weld the pieces together.3 hours and 20 attempts later, we break the replacement piece and reorder a new one. The second-new-replacement piece arrives after Midsummer, and we finally succeed in welding it in place, we plug the anchor remote, press the “drop the anchor” button: NOTHING. Anchor still not works. Ryan calls the marine workers to help, who fix the problem the next day. We go back to the boat, plug the anchor remote, press the button and…. NOTHING.Ryan calls the marine worker, and I overhear his answer on the other side of the phone: “You know that you have to have the engine on to operate the anchor winch, right?” We did not. We started the engine, plugged the anchor remote, pressed the button, and all of a sudden the anchor went down. It had most likely been working the whole time.It’s now July, and between weddings and business trips, we finally get five days free to get out on a real sail trip, complete with sleeping on the boat. So we go hard at it, full sails out in 35 knots of winds. For the non-sailors out here, 35 knots of wind when you start out sailing is some weather you should probably not venture yourself in. Imagine yourself, walking a huge dog on a leash. Now all of a sudden, your huge dog sees other dogs 200 meters away, starts running and barking, and you find yourself pulled by the leash, running behind and screaming at the dog to slow down, with no control until the dog calms down. That’s pretty much how we felt. We did not know that we should have reef the sail or take the headsail in. Now we do :)I will pass the story of our first night at anchorage, when Ryan rolled over me every hour to get out of the berth and check out if the anchor had dragged (It was a windless night, we were the only one at the anchorage). Instead, we will jump to the story of how we tried emptying the sewing tank at a sewage station in 35 knots of crosswind. The story could have ended shitty (bad pun intended), but we only ended up crashing and sliding our boat’s starboard side against the dock. We came back to our marina with a full sewage tank and some battle scars on the hull. Our “sailing holiday” leaves us exhausted.It’s now July 28th, and I’m turning 30. Ryan has a massive cold sore on his lips, a huge stye, and I battle a cold from hell. In spite of our discouraging parking jobs, we take the boat out on a beautiful sunny day for a day sail, and finally get to enjoy ourselves! Don’t ask me what happened next, but all of a sudden, it was already too cold in Sweden to sail, and we have to think about pulling the boat out of the water.It’s now October 27, and that’s the day we’re moving Polar Seal to the marina where she will spend the winter. It’s a very windy day, and it blows sideways. In an attempt to park the boat in crosswinds in the only available slip (at the very end of the narrow marina), the wind pushes Polar Seal in the boats parked. We crash in a small motorboat that had its outboard propeller up, all the while we glide back in the slip.Turns out, the side of the boat that took all the damage was the same that the one we crashed while trying to empty the sewage tank! A call to the insurance and a couple of thousand dollars later, we get have a battlescar-free hull! It is now December 2016, and we close up our very first year of sailing. We realize that for the sake of our lives, we’d better push our big sailing adventure another year. To put it mildly, 2016 was the year of learning. And although we’ve thanked ourselves each second of our sailing for the two weeks sailing class with Chris and Mandy in Gibraltar, there are a few things that we apparently needed to learn by ourselves, and our empirical approach to sailing taught us the following:

Don’t have all your sails out in 35-40 knots of winds when you don’t know what you do.
If the anchor winch does not work, try starting the engine before buying a welding iron.
Don’t attempt to park your boat when the winds blow sideways 35-40 knots and you don’t know what you do. If you can, just stay at home that day….
Don’t get your winch handle stuck in the wheel when you turn your boat.

Those lessons served us well in 2017, and we had a much more enjoyable sailing season :)[/et_pb_text][/et_pb_column][/et_pb_row][/et_pb_section]