b3rd and 4th July

Helsingor

I had a peaceful night and relatively late morning. I knew that the bridge was likely to not open until the rush hour was over, I tried phoning the bridge keeper but couldn’t get through, calling on VHF was similarly useful.

I reckoned that 1000 was a good time to try. The reason I’d been at anchor for the night and was doing little today was weather; Westerly gales again. Looking through the binoculars I could see the bridge but couldn’t read the time on the screen. I weighed anchor and motored around the corner to find that I had timed it beautifully with me about 10 minutes from the bridge and it being quarter to 10 and the time for opening on the screen being 1000. I slowed down. 10 came and went. I went up wind stopped, drifted down wind went up wind etc. I kept looking but nothing happened. At 1020 another boat appeared from the South and the time on the screen changed to 1030, so I suspect he and the bridge keeper had formed a conspiracy. At 1030 the red lights started flashing and soon the bridge went up and we went through. It was blowing 30 knots again, I motored up the channel for a couple of miles before turning left and going as close to the shore as I dared, dropping anchor with 1 m under the keel.

I’ve restarted this the following day, I was feeling queezy trying to write this in the sea we had at the time.

I spent the rest of the day before yesterday pottering about on the boat, I re fitted a small bit of timber to the bottom of the forward hanging locker that had been knocked out on the way across to the Caribbean last year.  The wind was blowing hard all day, I had a risotto for dinner and read a couple of chapters of a fairly heavy Hungarian book which I’m starting to enjoy.

Yesterday I wanted to get going early as I wanted to cover some distance, hence getting under the bridge the previous day. I left at about 0500 and sailed up to the shallow bit at the top of the channel, from here I motored so as to be able to follow my track on the way in which had worked well without me running aground and actually motored the next few miles too  until I could head North again and sail without beating. I left the Fjord, up the channel out into the open sea where there was a bit of a swell running. The wind was about 15 knots from the NW. I put full sail up and we romped along at about 7-8 knots across the top of Sjaelland, I tried to write the blog but, in the swell, was feeling queezy, so gave up. Most other boats seemed to just have genoas out and I overtook several   before turning SE then South down the towards Helsingor.  I was trying to keep the genoa full by gybing when the main was blanketing the genoa. Closing Helsingor I decided to put the pole out, as there was a leg with not much space before intruding on the shipping lanes,  however this didn’t work as, once I’d rigged the pole, I tried to gybe the genoa from port to starboard without rolling it up, with  the pole out to port, the sail got wrapped around the foresail, reminiscent of an issue I had off the North of Haiti which had taken hours to sort out. I didn’t have the luxury of sea room with Helsingor a mile downwind, however, luckily, it came out without too, too much hassle and I continued without the pole. In any event the pole reduces one’s ability to change course easily so is probably better for open waters.

We had a good sail down between Helsingor and Copenhagen and there was a fleet of Folkboats out racing off Copenhagen, very pretty. On the down wind legs all spare crew, generally 2 were sitting on the bow, presumably as this had been found to be beneficial for speed.

Copenhagen is in the process of re engineering her coastline and my pilot books and charts don’t agree so I was a bit nervous about getting into trouble with commercial traffic but there was none. There was a frontal system went through with winds up to 30 knots and having hoped to press on to the next headland down, thought I might give up and stop at Kastrup as I don’t really want to be doing extreme sailing this year, however once the system had passed through, by which time I’d reduced sail to 2 reefs in both sails, things were looking less angry and I carried on dropping anchor off the next headland South of the airport at about 2100. I had a quick, left over supper and went to bed.

The bridge (distant)