Report from Vanharouvas summer, ,

The summer is gone and we are about to get the first nights with frost here in the south of Finland and soon we´ll have the first snow and then the winter and the depressing darkness in december – february.

Vanharouvas summer went and we sailed almost as was planned. In the beginning of june my wife and her sister and I sailed ower to Sweden directly across the Baltic to Söderköping where the Göta canal starts and in 10 days we went across the south of Sweden to Gothenburg. There the ladies flew home to working routines and a friend of mine came from Finland to sail a week or two with me.

I hade planned to visit the south of Norway and Skagen, noth cape of Denmark, but unfavourable winds and bad weather combined with lack of time to wait for better conditions made us skip these plans ans proceed directly south from Gothenburg.

My friend left the boat in Copenhagen and I continued the trip homeward alone. From Copenhagen I sailed around the south coast of Sweden with a stop in Ystad and then to Gudhjem on the north coast of Bornholm where I met an old scoolfriend , whom I had not met in 40 years. Now a part time professor he had the time to take me round the island of Bornholm with his car and showed me places normal tourists do not find.

From Bornholm I sailed ower to Christiansö and discovered that these islands were just as interesting as I had been told by several friends.

From Christiansö over to Ölands east side and a nice stay in a small fishing harbour. From there to Gotland capital Visby were I stayed three days before continuing to Fårö, famous as the island of Ingmar Bergman, the late swedish filmguru.

Next stop in Ventspils, Latvia, and then one of my favourites, Riga, the capital of Latvia. The harbourmaster told me that my boat was too small for the journey but when I told him what sort of sailing had been done with Havsfidras, starting with the third OSTAR 1968, he admitted that the boat was Ok and hoped to see me there next summer.

The bay of Riga has a reputation of beeing a windhole and on my way home across the bay to the noth I logged all time speed record for Vanharouva. I was reaching with only two panels up and the windrudder steering and logging 9,5 knots several times. With a waterline of 5 m it is good going.

After a short visit to Tallinn, capital of Estonia, the last part of the trip on the gulf of Finland went on under the same conditions as the trip on the whole, either strong winds or calm, nothing in between. Not one normal day with summerwinds on the whole trip, strong winds and calms was the melody and sometimes spiced with thunderstorms.

The fact that the boat and the skipper came home without a single damage after nearly 2000 miles made me very happy and I immediately started to plan some modifications on the boat and making plans for next summer.

Next week Vanharouva probably starts the winterlife ashore and I try to overcome the winter with new horizons in my mind.