Norway #3 or Just back from the boat trip.
I'm sitting here almost not awake on the day after we got back from our boating adventure. It's about 3 in the afternoon, I slept for 9 hours, and my mind is still not working right. I think a few more days of rest will work well, but for now, expect a few typeo.s
We left on Friday morning at about 8 or so, loaded up the car, drove to the boat, loaded the boat, got stuff ready, and started our trip abord the schools 42 foot viking ship. Those of you following this story will note that we did not get to use the racing reggata. Oh well. I can't say I'm dissapointed. There is a picture of this wooden ship on the web. We had 10 people on board, a skipper ( the teacher for the class), a assistant skipper guy, and 8 of us students. The boat is all wood, and the sail is all cotton, it's a replica of what the viking guys were using way back in the day, in fact, a quarter of the school is studying Boat Building, where you make ships like this one. That group was out cutting trees for the week we were sailing. They start building next week. Anyway, this boat has a tiny cabin, I think you can sleep 5 in there if your freiendly, and you
can't really sit up all the way. So we stored stuff in it.
A picture of the actual boat we used is at:
http://www.fosen.fhs.no/
The big boat at the bottom of the center image. That's it.
Sleeping was interesting. I was convinced we'd be on the boat for 7 days straight. Thank the forces of good in the univerise that we stopped and made camp each night and slept in a port. We did get off the boat fairly often.
The jobs on the boat were divided into 6 active posistions, and 2 resting. Every 2 hours we'd shift jobs, and this kept on for the week. One guy was the front roper who adjusted the pull on the front edge of the sail, one guy was the untier who undid the front edge of the sail for turns, one guy was the runner who ran the back of edge of the sail up to the front and lashed in down, and a few guys in the back did navigation and steering. The highlight of our job was the last night of the trip. We were a bit of a ways out and trying to get back on time. So we sailed 16 hours. 9am to 7pm straight. We then did some night navigation with watching the color of the lighthouses. We rowed for a few hours durring this windless navagation period before the wind picked up, and boy did it ever pick up. After we finished our hot chocolate (a short rest period after the hours of rowing durring which we watched the Northern Lights show and listened to whales swim by ) we threw up the sail and, I at least, hung on for one of the
wildest ides in the west. Or east. We were doing something like 8 knots in gusty winds in the middle of the night. It was was one of the most spectatular trips in my life. My job was bow line, so I was sitting at the very front of the boat getting most of the bumbs as we bounced over the waves. The Northern Lights put on a fantastics show with half the sky iridcenent with waxing and waning emerald green. I watched the show of the islands and fijords of the norwegian coast passing by as the lighthouses I had navigated with changed color and then faded into the distance. We tacked a few times, and each was an experience in the dark with wind this strong. Karin was running the sail from the back to to the front, an especially exciting posistion.
The stops we made were usually twice a day and usually at non manmade ports. We'd often tie up at a small inlet and climb out on the steep fijord edges. One night was dinner on a small beach on a deserted island. We did some fishing and crab traping, and that yielded dinner a few times. One night I was filleting and frying a 5 or 10 mackrel for dinner. Let me tell you, fresh makrel is damn good.
The first night I slept in the open on the deck of the boat. And it rained. I slept in a tent on land after that. Much nicer. Speaking of sleeping, a few times after we were back I'd wake up at night and notice the wood paneled ceiling, and I would think that I was on the ship. Good times.
The day after we got back we learned to sharpen knives. What a school.
-Byron