Last Test Around the Southern Tip of Norway

So after we dropped Lisa at Leirvik, we needed to divide labour a little to get supplies from different stores in time to sail our 58Nm trip in the afternoon. Two days to cover almost 160Nm was starting to feel like we would be doing a fair bit of night sailing. Finally feeling like we were mastering manoeuvring our yacht with its heavy prop walk, we managed to set off from Leirvik with the sun still shining at around 1pm - not too bad, but we were quite conscious of the fact that we didn’t have unlimited daylight anymore, and we weren’t too keen on being out in 30 knots in the dark if we could avoid it. Thankfully, we had a bit of current with us, and a gorgeous broad reach to start meant we were getting along at over 8 knots. We were in a main shipping channel again so we had fun weaving between the ships and ferries. The wind slowly picked up and we managed to pick the perfect time to put our second reef in, turned the corner and blasted south. The going was relatively easy - and fast! But we were glad to have an inland route through Haugesund as big waves are pretty uncomfortable in our little yacht. More dodging of ships including one we were following after it passed us reversing and pulling a 90° turn a couple of hundred metres in front of us.
Running down the sound with a good breeze behind us was a lot of fun, but the weather had clagged in. This made sailing past a couple of enormous LNG cargo ships rusting away much more eerie.
We were making fantastic time, and so decided we could make our ambitious port 58 Nm from Leirvik (we had a couple of backups in case we didn’t make good progress). From the end of Haugesund, we were back out in the open, but thankfully there were a few island chains we could duck through, and it wasn’t actually as rough as we expected. We got to pass our first shipping lane roundabout (didn’t even know they were a thing until seeing them on the chart!) luckily without any ships actually in the roundabout. We finally pulled in to Tananger at around 9:30pm, led by a burn off flame from the oil refinery. We had made fantastic time, but we were still pretty tired, and we had an early start to make another 60Nm the next day, so quick showers then straight to sleep.
The next day dawned with a slightly windier forecast, which meant we lay in bed for a while pouring over the forecasts trying to decide if it was actually a good idea to sail round this part of the coast with a base 25 knots forecast. The coast here is notorious for few places to stop and the steep underwater cliff close to the coast that makes the currents do strange things, and the waves pick up to horrible, steep nasty things, so we had been told. We decided we could at least get most of the way down and should be able to make it into a port on one of the islands. So with not a small amount of trepidation, we set off with a beautiful downwind breeze and overcast skies. One thing was encouraging - there was a train of other yachts going in the same direction. As we got closer to turning the corner to go SW, we realised that somehow we were actually the fastest yacht, even though we were the smallest and had two reefs in already. Odd. But satisfying. Here the sun also came out, and the wind started to build. We were having a fantastic sail, gull winging in 20 knots with sunshine. Russell had to do the gull winging as the wind kept picking up and we were flying! Constantly seeing 10-11 knots surfing down waves, and just as we were starting to think it might be time to get rid of the Genoa, it ripped halfway up from the leech in. Luckily we managed to roll it up before it split the whole sail in half, but it was a sad point to realise that was finally the death of our Genoa. From here, luckily there was enough wind that we were still flying with just our main up. We were doing so well, and the sea state so manageable that we decided to skip our spot at Kirkehavn and instead duck in to Farsund. So we set a course back out to miss the worst part of the nasty underwater shelf and Russell started making dinner. This is where things started to get a little wild. The waves did indeed pick up from a 2m swell to horrible, steep 4 metre or more waves. Angela did a great job not getting taken out by them, while being distracted by pilot whales, but eventually one wave got her and we did a fairly spectacular broach, with Russell finding himself lying down on the side of the boat, above the pot of food. Our gimbled stove did an incredible job though, and not a drop of dinner was spilt, although a few other things managed to catapult themselves across the boat. Angela got the boat back under control and then not long after decided it would be a good idea if Russell took over. Meanwhile, Russell was trying to stuff some food down his throat while trying to not look too concerned at the size of the waves he could see rearing up behind Angela…
When Russell did take over, it was scary but manageable, and we saw over 13 knots down a wave before putting everything away. From here it got scary. Looking around, there were full lips breaking like surfable waves, not crumbling white water on top of swell like we were used to. Trying not to imagine what one of those lips would do to the boat, we headed further out to sea to try and get further away from the shelf that was causing it. No way we were going to try to cross in to Farsund, so it was either around Lindesnes if we could, or Denmark if not…Interestingly, there were still a few yachts around us, one had gone further out than us, and one inside the shelf. Both masts were moving violently, so it seemed nowhere really was good…
It’s hard to describe what it felt like to be picked up by a wave so steep that it seemed like the bow of the yacht was pointing straight down, and that awful pause that feels like forever, hanging 5ish metres in the air, then accelerating down the monster, pushing a bow wave that reached as high as our boom. Or having one of those waves break a metre behind us and swallow the stern of the yacht. We don’t know what our top speed was, but it sure as hell was over 13 knots! To her credit, our little yacht handled it stunningly well, once up and surfing, she was a dream to steer, and the only times Russell broached was when he didn’t catch a wave coming from a different angle in time.
Anyway, we finally got out of the horrible sea state and the wind also backed off a bit. It was still rough and windy, but it felt like child’s play compared to the last hour of sailing…the last yacht we were in touch with had come in line behind us while we were in the worst of it, and then had virtually stopped after a while which was incredibly odd, but we figured we had just managed to get out of whatever current was causing the madness, and they were still in it.
It was still a few hours to Lindesnes, and with it getting dark we really hoped the weather would keep easing off, as this was not going to be fun in the dark. It was a stunning sunset with a super bright moon, and thankfully, as we approached Lindesnes light, the weather did die and we could relax. The wind died altogether as we got around the point, and so we ended up motoring the last hour in the dark into Båly harbour. We are so thankful for how easy the navigation lights are at night in Norway. Coming into a new, complicated harbour in pitch black isn’t always easy, and especially after a long, stressful sail. Thankful for a safe dock and nothing badly broken on the yacht, we collapsed for a well deserved sleep after a 16 hour day and almost 100Nm.Read more