North Sea Crossing

Subject: Eschew the Jacuzzi
Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2007 21:41:00 +0100

Anyone fancy a trip across to Norway sometime in June? If so, why go on Erin, Grand Slam, with their twelve double bedrooms with en suite jacuzzis, saloons with full-size snooker tables etc? Instead, cross the North Sea at half the speed and suffer genuine discomfort aboard Zophiel.

I'm looking for a couple of crew with a decent amount of experience who can stand watches for the crossing, probably around mid-June given a suitable weather window. There may be the possibility of taking the boat for a bit of a holiday out of Stavanger afterwards, as I'll probably have to fly back home for a week or two.

Zophiel is a Vancouver 27 and whilst 27 feet isn't huge for a boat to cross the North Sea, the Vancouver 27 is a very seaworthy long keeler, with a comfortable motion, designed for ocean crossings. Zophiel had a new engine 18 months ago and I'm kitting her out at the moment with new standing rigging, mainsail, lifefraft, EPIRB, etc. She's got wind vane self steering and can pretty much sail herself if you tell her which way to go.

I'll probably take her up to Peterhead first to shorten the crossing and I'm sufficiently wimpy that I'm not intending to go when there's contrary winds, gales etc forecast.

Cheers
Martin

Back in April I responded to the email above, sent out to the mailing list of my local yacht club seeking crew for a North Sea crossing. A number of more experienced sailors responded but fortunately for me, that number dwindled to the stage where my name made it onto the final list.

Being from an east coast fishing town, I have grown up beside the North Sea and have been keen to sail across it ever since I got back into sailing 4 years back. In many respects, the fact that you can sail to 'proper' foreign countries is the only advantage about sailing on the east coast of Scotland as opposed to the west.

Martin has spent a lot of time preparing the yacht so that it is ready for the crossing: getting paper and electronic charts; replacing the standing rigging; buying an epirb, liferaft, flares, lifejackets and safety lines; filling every available space with 400 cans of beer (that's the kind of ballast I like).

Now that we are starting to get forecasts for the coming week, the plans are starting to take shape and it looks like 3 or 4 people are going to be on board to sail Zophiel, a Vancouver 27 up to Peterhead over the weekend, leaving on Thursday or Friday, and beating into a NE force 3. It sounds like this will be done as a series of day trips, getting into Peterhead by Sunday. Unfortunately, I'm a bit too busy to do this part of the journey so will join the boat up there. Departure for the next leg is dependant on the weather. Although it looks like there are no major storms on the way, we will wait for favorable winds for the sail across to Bergen in Norway, which possibly means that we will be departing around the 20th. It's about 280 Nm to Bergen from Peterhead so it should take us about 3 days to get there.

We'll be keeping a close eye on the synoptic charts from the Met Office for the next week and will hopefully be able to plan sufficiently far in advance to book flights for the journey home before they get too expensive. I must remember to pack my passport!