Adventures with Yggdrasil

2011-08-11T10:39:00.000-07:00

Vega 1118 sælges. 42000 dkr

Pa grund af min kones meget alvorlige sygdom har jeg besluttet at sælge min vega. Jeg har ikke energi og overskud til at beholde den. Det er rigtigt ærgerligt, for jeg havde alle tiders tur i den i 2010. Kig lidt rundt på min blog og du vil se at det er en velholdt og dejlig båd med masse af ekstra udstyr og nye sejl.

Udstyrsliste:

UK syversen Storsejl 2007. Brugt 2 sæsoner. Hurtig reb og fald fort tilbage til cockpit.

Helt ny Boding rulle genua ALDRIG BRUGT.

ældre rullegenua i pæn stand

Furlex rullessytem

Spilerstage

Mast og rig i meget fin stand.

Garmin GPS

Helt ny Nasa Ekkolod aldrig brugt.

20 watt solcelle

Autohelm 1000 selvstyrer

Sprayhood og bompresenning i god stand

3 stk. 60Amp baterier. ældre men fungerer

10kg Bruce Anker med kæde, Ankaroline og “normal” ankerline.

Lækkert salonbord som kan drejes rundt.

Søkort fra Skagen til Bornholm samt svenske vestkyst 2010

Lille specialbygget slæbejolle med årer

Motor. Original Albin O22 2 cylindret firetakt bensin indenbordsmotor. 12hk. Jeg havde problemer med motoren i 2011. Jeg tror ikke det er noget alvorligt, men giver ingen garanti. Kan kun sige at den fungerede problemfrit i 2010.

Båden ligger på land i Nakskov og kan fremvises af min far. Tlf. 69 80 09 34

Jeg er selv bosiddende i Spanien. Du er meget velkommen til at sende mig en mail hvis du har spørgsmål: donnybalonny@hotmail.com

Engine blues

2011-07-30T01:21:00.001-07:00

I´ve had problems with the Albin O22 engine. At first it started well, but ran uneven. Later, I couldnt start it at all. I´ve checked the spark and the timing. Everything well. I´ve taken off the petrol pump and the carburator and I´ve cleaned them. It ran uneven, stopped and wouldnt start again
I´m almost sure the fault is that the engine doesnt receive petrol. If I pour a couple of drops of petrol in each cylinder, it starts directly but only runs for a few seconds.

What to do?????
I´m not totally sure. The engine ran very well last year and without any problems it took me through the Trollhätte kanal, which is more than 40 nautical miles. And besides that I used it almost every day for 2 month, a total of some 30 hours of running... Without problems.
Also, Its possible to get spare parts for the engine in Sweden and they are not to expensive.

Another solution would be to buy a an outboard engine. Some 6 - 8 hp would do it for me....

Time will show.

Peter from Vancouver was kind to send me an Email, saying that I should make sure there werent water in the tank..... I didnt check that. But he´s right, I have should have done so. Always check the simple things first.

Vega Pram

2011-07-30T01:17:00.001-07:00

So here´s the fotos of the little pram that I build for my boat. Its very light and I can lift it onboard ny myself.

On land

2011-06-10T01:12:00.000-07:00

So here she is. Standing on land. Hopefully I will be back in summer 2011 ready for more adventures.

The small islands in the archipelago

2011-06-10T01:07:00.000-07:00

My last days I spend visiting some small islands in the Archipelago. Avernakö, Lyö and Drejö. All of them with very inhabitants. Some 10 - 50 persons living all year round. Thats tranquility and quietness. I didnt take many photos, so you have live with this one from Drejö, which shows a very typical tarditional Danish farm.

Ærøskøbing

2011-06-10T00:56:00.000-07:00

Ærøskøbing is the main "city" on Ærø, the same island where Marstal is also situated. Its bigger (927 persons in 2010) and very different. Where Marstal was has mainly to do with boats, ships etc. Ærøskøbing is the business and administrative center. Its an EXTREMELY pretty place. I wont write much, just photos.

Marstal

2010-10-01T01:20:00.000-07:00

I sailed around in the famous archipelago south of Fyn in first couple of weeks in August.
Marstal is always nice. It was a very lively village some 100 years ago with hundreds of big Marstal schooners sailing all over the world. When this trade died because of the use of bigger ships with engines, Mastal slowly lost its importance and is now a pretty sleepy little village.
But it has this air of boats everywhere, and even though the harbour is big and there´s a lot of boat tourists, its not like being in a moern marina.

More info about Marstall here and on Google:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marstal

Gilleleje in Denmark

2010-09-26T13:42:00.001-07:00

I came to Denmark in the end of july. It was with some mixed feelings. I am danish, but I havent lived in Denmark for the past 9 years. The best of it all was to see old friends.

And a picture of the captain in his boat

2010-09-14T01:44:00.001-07:00

Blogs always get so impersonal if there arent any photos of the author. So here I am:

Out through the channel and leaving Sweden

2010-09-11T01:16:00.000-07:00

The 16/7 I left the lake Vänern. I felt like staying, but I also wanted to go south, to Denmark, where I´m from and where the boat is going to stay on land when I´m not sailing and living in it.

The lake Vänern is divided in two parts, Värmlandssjön in the north east and Dalbosjön in the southwest devided in the middle by the very beautifull archipelago "Lurö skärgaard" I sailed right through Dalbosjön on a rainy day, where Yggdrasil and the autopilot did the work themselves. It was so dark that you couldnt see the coast, so I stayed below with the GPS and the seecard and only looked up every 15 minust or so. I really like those two extra windows that Yggdrasil has in the front of the main cabin. I can actually see forward pretty well from down below.
I hope one day to come back to the lake and then I´m going to concentrate on Dalbosjön.

I was a little bit nervous when I left the lake. In front of me, I had 6 locks and 45nm of channel and river. I had asked around about the locks. If it could be done alone and everyone said it wasnt a problem because the locks dont let the water in through opening the ports, but using a much more modern system where the water comes in and goes out through the bottom. They were right. I wasnt a problem at all. Just stay with a ladder and "walk" the steps when you go down. The northern part of the river is very beautifull and I enjoyed the motoring a lot.

Another thing that worried me when starting was the fact that the river and channel is a total of 45nm and I had only done a max of 7 - 8nm with the engine. But there werent any problems.

I went out through the northern part of the river, passing Kungälv. I wasnt in the mood for Göteborg which is a big city. Reaching salt water was nice. I like the smell. But I was a little bit shocked about the enourmous amount of boats in the archipelago near Göteborg. Also the the ever present civilisation (houses, cars, ferries etc.) kind of scared me. So I passed through the famous archipelago of Göteborg pretty quickly heading south all the time. The last photo is from my last place mooring directly to the rocks on Ockerö Kalv. A wonderfull spot with bare rocks. and very clear and clean salty water. It was great to be in Sweden!!

Sailing in the lake Vänern

2010-09-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

Vänern is the biggest lake in Western Europe. Some 80 nm on the longest. Its very deep. More than 100 meters (330´) Its also very clean. In fact its a drinking water reservoir and you can drink the water when you are a little bit away from the coast.
There are lots of small rock islands archipelagos and since most of them are natural parks, its very quiet and unspoiled. I’ve sailed in many places in Scandinavia, but the lake Vänern is definitely one of my favourite places.

The Vega was built in Katrinehamn in the northern part of the lake. It was a good feeling starting out in the boats home waters.

My girlfriend sailed with me for 10 days and one day she said: “look there, is it a car?” It wasn’t a car, but we realized that we hadn’t seen a car for 6 days!! Something very unusual in modern life.

The archipelagos are not very deep close to their coast and finding a place to moor directly against the rocks can be difficult. Especially when sailing alone. Here’s what you do. You look at the sea card and you ask locals. When you decide for a spot, you go in using your engine. You stop some 5 – 10 meters out and go up in the front of the boat and take a look. If it looks ok, you go out and prepare.

You need to have two lines ready in the front. both with metal wedges attached in the end for hammering down between the rocks. You also need to attach a front ladder to your front pulpit. Behind you prepare the anchor leaving it hanging half a meter down in the water.

Then you go in slowly. If possible go so slow that you don’t need to reverse the engine. When some 25 meters from the rocks, you let the anchor down and when you are very close to the place where you want to moor, you go up front, stay on the ladder with one of the lines with wedges and you jump in. Don’t forget a good hammer. Try to be fast with one wedge. Go back to the rear of the boat, stop the engine, and slightly tighten the anchor line. The back to the rock with the other line/wedge. That’s more or less it.

On the last two pictures, you can see my favourite spot on “Ormholmarna” An absolutely wonderful and very quiet spot, where you can only go in with smaller boats like the Vega. Don’t worry, there’s no tide and the bottom is mud.

2010-08-31T04:32:00.000-07:00

One of the things I knew that I would have to change when I bought an Albin Vega, was the standard cabin table. Its to big, to flimsy and its always in the way. I bought moveable table leg in Sweden called a "Lagun bord" Its higly recommendable. If you buy an extra base plate, it can be used in the cockpit as well.

The adventure began. Buying the boat

2010-08-30T10:38:00.000-07:00

I bought the boat, an Albin Vega 27 in Sweden, its home country. I bought it there because there are so many for sale, they are cheap and besides, Sweden is one of my favorite countrys. Its clean, people are in general nice and easy going and the nature is big and quite wild as well.
I bought the boat the 5/6 2010 and my first year adventure was sailing from Hällekis in Vänern to Denmark and also a little bit around in Denmark. In total, I ended up with 825 Nautical miles in 8 weeks.

My Vega, Yggdrasil is from 1971, Its number 1118 out of almost 3500 built. Its in a very good shape and it has been taken care of durings its whole life. There are no "issues" that has to be fixed. Just some few improvements to personalize the whole thing. It has its original Albin 022 petrol inboard engine. Its old, but it always starts and hasnt been a source of any problems. The main sail is new and the roller furling genua is in a good shape but a bit to big (21 sqm)
The whole idea about buying a boat is to have a summer residence in Scandinavia where I´m from. I live in Spain, and although I really like it, its to hot in summer. I cant work and I dont like 35 - 40 degrees celcius. I´m my own boss, so I decided to give myself 2 month of sumer hollydays a year and work one more day a week during the rest of he year. Since I really like my work (building guitars) thats not a problem at all.
I´ve sailed since I was a kid and I´ve owned traditional Scandinavian boats like a folkboat. I have sailed singlehanded for hundreds of miles and I like it. I hope my girlfriend will join me for some weeks every year and besides that, I have my dog, Nimbus to give me some company.
On the first picture you an see what she looked like when I found her.
On the next, the engine, a 2 cyl. sidevalve 12hp thing that goes extremely slow. Its a bit noisy and smelly but it pushes me around, it always starts and its got style.
Next the cabin the way it looked day 1.
after that a cople of pictures of Yggdrasil ready to go into the water and finally ready to sail.