An Overnighter to Denmark
25 September 2008 | Klintholm, M�en
Sunny! NE 17-25 knots predicted, slowly decreasing during the night and tomorrow. Then on Friday, this faithful NE will disappear, and leave a temporary calm. During Saturday morning the wind will return from W.
To utilize this 'dying' NE we set sail at noon to do an overnighter to Klintholm on the Danish Island of M�en.
After an hour or so, we had to take a reef in the main and soon after the second one. Actually the first time this season. Another fact worth mentioning is that we have yet not had to beat to windward a single full day. Following winds is nice! ;-)
Despite the now diminished sail area, we made 6,5-7 knots, occasionally more on a short surf of course. The heading waas 220 degrees to start with, and we had a broad reach all the way down to Sandhammaren's Lighthouse at the SE point of the Scanian (swedish) mainland.
At sunset we arrived there and turned to 250 degrees. Obviously this was just about dead downwind, so I took the main down completely and lashed it to the boom. Easier and safer selfsteering during the night, and no need to go on deck. We were still making 5,5 knots so no worries.
In the early morning hours, when the wind had decreased noticeably, and so the boat speed, I went on deck again and hoisted the main with a single reef this time. An hour later the second reef was untied too.
We didn't get much sleep during the night, but it wasn't THAT cold and the starry sky was superb value for the inconvenience.
We arrived at Klintholm around noon, thus we covered the approx. 125 miles quite fast, considering that the last 3 hours, we only made 2-3 knots as the wind was dying already.
The village was a bit of a disappointment, though with a bunch of recently built an not too charming time-share appartmentts. More than 160 guest slips it has to be a busy place in vacation time.Except for us, a couple of Polish and German boats were the only visitors.
Needless to say, we went to bed early and slept like babies