Ecologbook: Aiming for Ystad, A.K.A. Saving fender Ryan

I had originally planned to leave around 8 or 9 in the morning, but I was a bit slow to depart. Then I had to wait for the postal boat and the ferry to depart to Christiansø (they are big, and I didn't want to have to manoeuvre at the same time as them in the tiny harbour). Funny enough, they always depart with some choral chants being sung on the docks.

While I was preparing everything to get out as soon as possible after them, my Danish neighbours started talking to me, and we ended up chatting in broken Swedish for more than an hour. I might have lost a bit of time, but I learned a few valuable info (specially about the Kiel canal).

In the end, it was nearly 11 when I had my sails up and started to follow the coast of Bornholm to the West-north-west. The wind was quite strong and gusty, Elvira was flying with 1 reef at first and a second one that came shortly after that. By the time I was almost out of the shelter provided by Bornholm, the wind was still strong but only warranting 1 reef. I thought it best to keep the second one in until I had a proper taste of the sea away from the island. And so it stayed until the middle of the afternoon.

I had a lot of fun smoking another sailboat by sailing faster and more upwind and letting them far back under my lee. Fair enough, usually I'm the slow one, so it's good to enjoy the reverse every now and then. The long part to get to the Swedish shore crossed a shipping lane. I had no problem passing the first half (where boats go from south to north) but when approaching the other part (north to south), a rather big container (well, at least it felt big to me) was a bit too close to crossing path with me. I tacked and ran closed-haul on the starboard side long enough for it to pass me, and then finished crossing the shipping lane in peace.

The last part of the day was a bit frustrating, the wind had decreased and was coming dead straight from where I wanted to go. Also, it felt like my tacks weren't getting me closer or not as close as they should have. Anyhow, when the sun started to set I realised I would not manage to get to Ystad (especially as the wind was really dying down, but the sea hadn't yet). So I opted for another stop: Kåseberga.

While I was preparing my boat at the approach of Kåseberga (under sails), I dropped a fender in the water. I usually never do that: I sail as long as I can, furl the genoa, start the engine, go face wind and take down the main, and only then do I start preparing the lines for mooring and placing the fenders. However, that day I'd thought why not get that done already so it'll go faster when I'm going on the engine. Served me well… So with the fender in the water, I started to try a “man-over-board” manoeuvre (with the sails still on at first), failed twice, took down the sails and tried again on the engine. After 3–4 attempts with the motor on, I managed to get it back…

By that point it was fairly dark, cloudy and a bit more windy than before. Anyway, I got in the harbour, moored safely and that was it.