In this Newsletter
Highlights of last summers sailing holidays
10 best sailing holiday photos from 2011
Weird clouds, brave crew, the best sunset ever and more.
Learn To Sail a Schooner No.8
Sailing Into Harbour

Highlights Of Last Summers Sailing Holidays

Land fall in Norway and chance visit to Botnane

Trinovante made landfall in Norway last year at Floro 100 miles north of Bergen. John the skipper is always scouring the charts for likely looking places to visit and chose Botnane for our next stop. A slightly tricky entrance with leading lines opened up into huge glacial valley with steep wooded slopes in the background, then a small bay opened up on our starboard side. We had just spotted an old tug alongside a disused ferry quay when immediately the Norwegian who owned the quay appeared and waved us in to tie up alongside.
He told us there were Viking graves only a short walk up the road and in fact there were two large burial mounds, one on each side of the entrance.

The boat was invited to return any time and we popped in again on our way back down south when we were very kindly presented with a set of antlers.
They were a nostalgic reminder of beautiful place in Norway when we hoisted them in the rigging for the last part of our journey home up St Osyth Creek (UK). Botnane and Nord Fjord were the inspiration for a children's story we have just posted on our blog 'Trinovante and the Magic fjord'.

We really hope to be able to visit Botnane again this summer.

Sailing to Nord Fjord

Yes it really was magical in Nord Fjord and we almost forgot the rest of the world existed. On our way north there was still a fair amount of snow here and several of the crew found it irresistible This little ice bridge was a find - there was no need to go over it but there is no stopping some people! On both of our visits this year the weather was perfect and we enjoyed the warm and balmy all night daylight. We saw otters and reindeer marveled at the bright blue glacial waters wandered along the beach, climbed in the hills ...

The crew wrote two blogs about it here

Sailing beyond the Arctic Circle to Bodo
Schooner Sailors Paul and Lyn's Sailing Holisay in Norway

And the fishing was good too

No one caught a record breaking fish this year but there was plenty of variety with Cod, Ling, Mackerel, Saith and Haddock. For those of you who missed it on our facebook page here is a photo of Sophia with her haddock caught on a mackerel hand line off Skrova in the Lofotens.
Soon after we stopped to fish several other boats did too. Our schooner sailors caught enough haddock for that nights dinner and then headed off.

Haddock are fairly easy to identify bearing 'the thumbprint of St Peter' behind its head, you can see the round mark quite clearly in the photo just above the fin.

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Walking and Sailing In Norway

Several of the 2011 crews were keen hikers and we had some memorable walks in Norway last year.

Our favourite new walk (photo below) was into the mountains at the back of Sorvagen in the Lofotens. It was a moderately challenging hike (beware the Norwegian walking trail graded as 'easy'. Norwegians are much more adventurous than the average Brit) with some fantastic views.

Traditional Rigs And Tall Ships On Every Horizon

As always in the Netherlands there are traditional rigs in every direction on all sizes of boats. Square rigged, gaff rigged and unusual mixes of sail types.

It is always a pleasure to be out on the Ijsselmere and Markenmere surrounded by everything from large square riggers to little 20 foot gaff rigged steel day boats.

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The 10 best sailing holiday photos from 2011 taken by the Trinovante sailors.

The Best looking Into The Distance Shot

The panoramic shot above was taken in the Seven Sisters Mountains behind Sandnessjoen as we were heading north.
Check out the blog posts from this crew below.

Best Brave Crew Photo

Danielle goes in swimming from a pontoon near Alesund. Just out of shot the entire Trinovante crew are

cheering him on,
holding his towel,
videoing the moment for posterity,
just about anything else they could think of in fact,

except joining him for a swim.

He said it was not that cold - it's a possibility that he lied!

Best Cloud Photo

In the second photo localised cloud pours over the island of Lovund and the base of the island is just beginning to show underneath.

Best Action Shot

Hoisting the fishermans topsail sent in by Vibhuti.Mokshapriya who is hauling on the halyard wrote the blog post A Buddhist Reflection Sailing Back From Amsterdam

Best Wildlife Photo

To the right below is Ben's photo of some Arctic Terns in flight with the Loften Islands in the background. He was particularly pleased to capture the land below them.

Best Sunset Image

A photo taken by Sarah in Fosnevag. The statue is a fisherman's wife and son looking anxiously out to sea waiting for the fisherman's return - a popular theme in Northern Norway. Sarahs blog post is Fjords And Food - A Gastronomic Discovery On A Trinovante Sailing Holiday

Best Container Ship

These are some of the biggest container ships in the world loading and unloading at Felixstowe dock also taken by Vibhuti

Best Photo of A Crew Pretending To Be A Rock Band

I think Mike took this one because he's not in the photo.
Read the blog post The Saga Of The Passage to Norway by Neil Ashdow

Best Textures Image

From Barrie - you can read his blog post Off The Beaten Track On A Sailing Holiday In Norway

The object is to reduce sail steadily and smoothly as the harbour is approached, maintaining speed for as long a possible and initially making up to windward initially,while avoiding having a last minute rush to reduce sail and overshooting.

1 Fisherman topsails off.
These can be folded and bagged relatively early. this can be done quite quickly with a skilled crew.

2 Mizzen off.
With the mizzen stowed we can still make to windward and tack if necessary. any disruption caused to the helmsman by being enveloped in the folds of sails is got over with early.

3. Staysail off.
This is furled to the boom and lifted across to the weather rail, leaving the lee rail clear for stowing the jib.

For more articles like this go to our learn to sail page

4. Foresail off.
Sufficient distance is now made to windward. With only the jib and mainsail now set we can still claw up a bit to windward if necessary.

5 Jib off.
we are now effectively hove too (we will be doing hove too next in the series) Trinovante will slightly forereach with the helm locked while the crew stow the jib and ready the fenders and lines for docking. When we are ready we bear away and run down to the harbour getting the main of as we go.

One of the nice things about a three masted schooner is you can adapt what you do to suit the crew. With a biggish experienced crew some of these operations can be carried out simultaneously and the whole thing can happen quite quickly. If there are only a couple of people onboard there is no need to rush and it can all happen much more slowly.
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