I spent a week sailing with my brother, Torsten. He graciously volunteered to write up the experience. Thank you very much for a great time and a great report:
Ever since I was a little kid playing with our Playmobil Pirate ship I wanted to have a boat. An oceangoing Sailboat – a pirate ship. Being in my mid thirties I suddenly realized that there was nothing to stop me from realizing this old dream of mine. So I did. In March 2015 I bought a 27 foot Swedish sloop from 1972. An Albin Vega. These little boats were designed as family cruisers for Swedish families of four, to spend their summers off their beautiful coast in the Baltic sea.
However nowadays these Ships are found in every ocean around the globe. Some of them might be in a pretty poor state of disrepair but of the odd 3500 vessels that have been built during the 1960s and 1970s most of them are still afloat and many of them are still cherished and taken good care of.
My brother Sören and I have been doing quite some adventuring together in our lives growing up together. Of course he was interested in my new toy when I got her in 2015. But he had other things on his mind having moved to Swizerland not too long ago. Work was quite consuming I suppose but what seemed to be most important was mountaineering in the Alps...
So the story of our lives, in which we “divvy up” the world between us, continues. He does “the triangles”: computers, math and mountaineering. I do “the circles”: music, art and sailing. He does endurance, cold and suffering. I do relaxing, sunshine and indulgence (a boat has so much more to offer in terms of beverages, snacks and sleeping quality etc. ;-)
It’s been a long time coming!
Ever since I bought the Illub nine years ago. We’ve sailed 4500 nautical miles in 2 seas, visited 20 islands in four countries with a total of 35 different crew. Sören finally found the time to go sailing with us :-)
Starting out was a pretty long day. Sören took the train from Zürich in the morning and I, just having returned from one week of work in a Theater the night before, got myself organized to be ready for his arrival in Cologne at noon. That only left us with 350 km to go to the Illub, provisioning and getting the ship ready for sailing. Quite exhausted, we made it and were rewarded with a beautiful Sunset for dinner.
Ee - Lauwersoog
The first Day we used warming up sailing together, learning the ropes, getting into the swing of things. I know my brother knows how to tie a knot, being a climber and mountaineer, but I was not sure about his sailing skills. We did some Sailing together on the Aasee in Münster in 1991 and he also crewed a couple of times when we chartered boats. But nothing recent. So after 90 Minutes of motoring down the canal, passing a couple of drawbridges and one lock, we hoisted jib and mainsail and went up and down the Lauwersmeer. We stopped at a mooring for a little swim, coffee and snacks (how’s that for a break all you mountaineers!) and made our way to the second lock which lifted us up into the salt water of the North Sea. But before we could move on we had to refill the water and diesel tanks and buy some much needed sunscreen.
Lauwersoog - Borkum
| Weather: | 18°C cloudy |
| Wind: | 3Bf |
| Tide: | low tide at 8:01 am |
In order to make use of the tides rather than fight against the currents we got up early and left the dock at 6:00 am.
With light winds and the push of the currents we made 5 knots and good time. We passed the “Plattgatt” (narrow and shallow part between Ameland and Schiermonnikoog) at 8:00 am. The next couple of hours we sailed easily due east (70°) with the wind on our starboard beam. We passed the “Huibergatt” at 11:30 am, crossed the Ems delta and made fast on Borkum at 1:00 pm. Our timing with the tides, currents and wind was so perfect, that we reached port two hours early!
Enough time to wander around on the Island and get some proper ice cream for Sören. For some reason he can’t seem to find the ‘correct’ thing in Switzerland although Italy is a direct neighbor and way closer to them than to the Northsea! Anyway, looking at the weather forecast we decided to catch the next tide in the morning because after that, rain and no wind was predicted and we wanted to do some more sailing.
Borkum - Langeoog (Norderney as an early exit option)
| Weather: | 20°C cloudy |
| Wind: | 4-5 Bf |
| Tide: | low tide at 9:09 am |
Again our plan was to catch the tide and let the current sweep us out to sea. The only thing to consider is the “Hohe Riff” which of course has less water during low tide and becomes potentially dangerous. Even to the Illub with only 1,2 m of draft. Still there are shallows and also quite a lot of shipwrecks from WWII that are just below the surface.
Leaving the dock at 6:45 am we passed the riff at 8:30 am and settled in for a day at sea. The waves were such that we decided to jive between a course of 10° and 80° although we would have preferred to steer 70°. Sometimes it is preferable to steer a course in accordance with the wind and waves rather than the one plotted on a chart. A smooth running ship on a slightly longer sail is more fun than saving one or two hours but having trouble maintaining course and speed all the time; waves pushing you of course, sails that won't fill properly…
We found our rhythm of jiving and decided to skip Norderney and continue to sail on to Lageoog. Then we spotted a curious Ship on the horizon. It didn’t seem to move but also didn’t show any signs of being moored. Unfortunately she was somewhat in our way. So as we continued our jiving groove the distance between the ominous ship and the Illub shrank. Still we could not see any sign of the ship being on anchor or in any other way stationary. Since there was no danger of collision we did not alter course and happily continued on. After a while another ship appeared. This time pretty much on a collision course. So we changed our heading a couple of degrees only to realize a few minutes later that the second ship was on a collision course with us again. By now we were close enough to be able to read the vessels names:
By this time I was gettin a little nervous. The SURSUM CORDA obviously maneuvered to stay on a collision course - or at least almost-collision-course. The Illub being 27 feet long and thus smaller than 10 meters is not required to have a VHF radio installed. However I took out my little handheld VHF and sure enough there was the SURSUM CORDA hailing us:
“Sailing vessel approaching MS SIMA, sailing vessel approaching MS SIMA, sailing vessel approaching MS SIMA, you are entering a restricted area!”
“This is sailing vessel Illub, we are changing course now”
So we did. The Captain escorted us for a little while longer before he returned to his station. We were approximately 3 miles (5,5km) off the coast of Norderney and well within reach of the mobile network so Sören did some research on the two Vessels. We think MS SIMA was on duty laying down or servicing a submarine power cable from the nearby offshore windpark. So she was in motion but imperceptibly slow. Why she didn’t show that she was restricted in her ability to maneuver I don’t know. But she had a ban mile of 0,5nm and a guard vessel to enforce it nonetheless.
Our timing was perfect when we reached the “Accumer Ee” which is the entrance between the Islands of Baltrum and Langeoog. The tide was coming up and washed us from the Northsea into the Wattenmeer.
You might notice that we went a little far to the east on our way in. This is due to my charts being a little out of date and the position of the buoys has been altered by quite some degree. Also it was our first time passing through the Accumer Ee. By the time we found all the proper buoys the currents pushed us due east and we had to struggle to maneuver the passage without the aid of the engine.
I admit I was tempted to do so because not only was the channel of deep water surrounded by shallows and sandbanks, there was also a WWII shipwreck just below the surface. We should have been able to cross it with the tide already up a meter or so but it just didn’t sit right with me and I wanted to avoid the wreck desperately and almost started the engine - almost.
We passed the wreck under sail with only a couple of meters to spare! From this point on it was easy sailing. Within the Wattenmeer the waves died down, the water kept pushing us towards the harbor and a warm afternoon sun kindled thoughts of beer and food. Which is exactly what we did!
Unfortunately the weather changed unfavorably the next couple of days and prevented us from sailing any more. Either there was no wind or it was blowing from the south-west which would have been exactly “on the nose”. You could theoretically beat up in that direction but a 8 hour sail on a beam reach easily turns into 16 - 20 hours of wet, bumpy, uncomfortable and very exhausting sailing. Did I mention me being the circle-guy going for easy sailing, good food, lots of beverages and the occasional smoke on my boat? Also me being the skipper, there was no discussion from my dear triangle-brother who likes to hike up mountains at 3:00am with just a bottle of water and two granola bars for the whole day.
So we made the best of the remaining two days on board trying to find gaps in the rain to hike around the island - which didn’t work - and afterward we chilled below deck attempting to dry our clothes and shoes.
Finishing up
Two days of island life went by and my guest had to head home. His family demanded of him to go on a holiday with them as well ;-)
I stayed behind, waited for the weather to turn more favorable and cast off the lines the evening of the following day. It is always exciting for me to sail at night especially when I do it single handedly. But everything went well. It took me almost 12 hours and I made fast on Borkum at 4 am, wet, a little cold and very tired. The weather turned on me when I changed course due south to head up the mouth of the river Ems. Rain came pouring down so hard I had to rely on my trusty Garmin GPS to know where I was going because the dark and the rain made it impossible for me to recognize any buoys etc. at a distance.
From Borkum it took one more Sail up the river Ems before entering the canals of the “staande mastroute” at the port of Delfzijl via Groningen back to Ee where we started.
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