Stavern (auto-pilot broke)
We sailed up to the north part of West Sweden (town of Stromstad) so that we’d have just a short distance (40 miles) to cross the Skaggerak Sea to Norway. The weather forecast was calling for rain and light winds, so we assumed it would just be kind of a light misty rain. It poured MOST of the passage. About 90 minutes into motoring (not enough wind for sailing), Hokukea did a 360° turn while on auto-pilot. MJ quickly went to the helm and began hand-steering. The auto-pilot stopped working after the 360° maneuver. We finally got to our selected anchorage, a pretty little protected island called Malmøya, and found that it was already crowded with boats and there really wasn’t room for us to anchor safely. We were wet, cold, and tired, but Adam quickly found us a nearby harbor at the town of Stavern. Stavern was a very pretty little town, and we were glad to have found it.
Risør (taking on water!)
Because we arrived in Stavern on a Saturday, we decided to continue on our way on Sunday without a working auto-pilot because we needed to get to Stavanger. As we left Stavern, we did some compass re-sets and recalibrations on the auto-pilot. Unfortunately, the auto-pilot still wouldn’t work. We motored out of Stavern heading south to Risør in light winds, had a second cup of coffee underway, and then rolled out the sails as the winds picked up. We had some fabulous sailing in 10-17 knot winds and saw boat speeds up to 8 knots (lots of 7+ knots!).
We were sailing along, grinning ear to ear, and our bilge alarm went off. Adam scurried below, lifted up the carpeting and floorboards, and found that the water was quite high in our bilge. He quickly began pumping the water out with our manual bilge pump. It was hard work, but the pump was very strong and effective. Once the water level was low, it appeared that no more water was coming in. He measured the height of the water remaining in the bilge (2-3 cm), we took down our sails, and motored the rest of the way to Risør. It was tough going, as our course was directly into the wind. Our boat speed was sometimes under 4 knots in really choppy seas and strong headwinds.
After tying up at a dock in Risør, we opened up the space under our bed in the aft cabin where the auto-pilot mechanism is located. We wanted to check for any obvious issues (disconnected parts, broken wires, etc.). There were several inches of water in the aft-most section of the hull, the auto-pilot wires were partially and entirely exposed, and the wires were sitting in a few inches of water. That part of the hull should be 100% dry. We also noted that it was wet around the seals where the rudder posts penetrate the hull. We had some serious issues! Adam wrote a detailed email with multiple photos to Hallberg-Rassy that night. We called them in the morning.
Because we were about 80 miles from the Hallberg-Rassy boat yard by water, they sent a worker to us in Risør. He arrived at about 10:30 a.m. and immediately got to work. He replaced much of the auto-pilot wiring, mounted it high up, and replaced part of the auto-pilot itself. He said the seals on the rudder posts were incorrectly installed, and he installed new ones. We took the boat out sailing for a bit to check that the rudder seals were water-tight when we heeled. Then the worker from Hallberg-Rassy checked our automatic bilge pump and found it was totally nonfunctional. By this time it was 5:30 pm, so he stopped for the day. He returned at about 9:30 a.m. the next morning with a new bilge pump and replaced the broken one.
The good news in this series of unfortunate incidents is that Risør was a lovely, lovely little town. It was sunny and warm (low 70s); we walked and explored, did our laundry, and sat at the bakery sipping cappuccinos and eating cinnamon pastries. We stayed longer than planned in Risør (3 days), so we left immediately after the bilge pump was fixed and headed for our next stop, Arendal, just 25 miles south of Risør.
Risør is known as the home of sea captains. Many of the old houses have plaques with the name of the sea captain who lived in the house as well as the figurehead from the captain’s ship.
Arendal
No wind, so we just motored the four hours to Arendal. We checked for water intrusion after we got to Arendal. There was no evidence of any leaks/water intrusion!
Lillesand
In checking the weather forecasts, we noted some strong winds coming from the south and southwest within a few days. We didn’t want to be on anchor with wind gusts 30+ knots, so we looked for a guest harbor with spaces for a boat of our size that would offer good shelter from the wind. Lillesand wasn’t quite as far as we would have like to have gone, but it had the protection we were looking for. So we sailed to Lillesand (about 25 miles). It was a bit foggy with light winds when we departed, so we motored and practiced using our radar. After about 90 minutes we rolled out the headsail and sailed 6-7 knots the rest of the way to Lillesand.
As we entered the harbor, Adam scouted out a good spot for us in the inner part of the harbor, and then the harbor master waved us over to that very spot. The harbor was quite crowded with some boats rafted to one another, so we felt really grateful to have such a protected spot. I was super nervous, because it was fairly tight docking with a large audience. Our final day in Lillesand was Saturday, June 29. We used it as a cleaning day, and cleaned the interior of the boat from stem to stern!
