The two routes

As mentioned before, we have two quite different approaches for going from Copenhagen to La Corona in northern Spain.  For planning without any commercial mapping programs, I´ve got the good idea from my sailing friend Ole Petter, using the Google Earth applicatioan with the ruler making path markings along the route for counting up the nautical miles. I´ve played with this method to accumulate the length for each of the routes:


The original plan through the Kieler kanal and then follow the English Channel, is the shortest obviously with a little more than 1200 nm.

nm     To - From
133    Ishøj - Kiel
  14    Kiel - Flemhuder See / Holm
  46    Flemhuder See - Brunsbuttel
  51    Brünsbuttel - Spiekerroog
233    Spikeroog - Belgia
190    Beliga - Isle of Wight
201    Isle of Wight - ile d´ Oessant
340    ile d´ Oessant - La Corona
1208    SUM

The other route is some 340 nm longer, but might look a little more interresting with sailing all of Loch Ness, among several other scottish lakes.  Then all the nice small british islands including Isle of Man:

nm     To - From
164    Ishøj - Skagen
477    Skagen - Inverness
  15    Inverness - Loch Ness
  20    Loch Ness
  10    Loch Ness - Loch Lochy
    8    Loch Lochy
    7    Loch Lochy - Ben Nevis
    9    Loch Linne
  20    Loch Linne - Oban
110    Oban - PortPatrick
  48    PortPatrick - Isle of Man
  78    Isle of Man - Bardsey Island
  59    Bardsey Island - Ramsey
110    Ramsey - Sennen Cove
415    Sennen Cove - La Coruna
1550    SUM

Dream Legs

The best thing about virtual sailing on the desk with charts or on the computer, is that you can fast and easy switch between whatever courses you like:

Alt plan mixed with photo of Zephyr

Our good skydiving and sailing friend, Jan Arvidsson, came up with a suggestion of a better route, even though not so much longer. To first head up north, passing Skagen and then going to Inverness, the Caledonian channel to Oban and then around Irland rounding Fastnet Rock in the south before going straight to La Coruna? It is an interesting idea, about 1600 Nm compared to otherwise some 1300 Nm.  If the alternative route is following down the Irish Sea between Irland and England, this route sould be cut down to something like maybe 1500 Nm.



Some reasons for avoiding the English Channel:

• Extremly crowded with huge ships
• Often fog
• Current may sometimes approach 6-7 knots
• Tides up to 6 meters
• Shallow water gives ruff vawes

Extensive planning and timing is needed for when to sail or going to harbours, to avoid negative effects of many of the listed problems. Certainly those are releveant also for the other route, but usually not to the same extent.

Preparations before the start

Two X-boats match-racing towards Moss in the Oslo-fjord
Photo: Kjell Arne

It is important to make sure that we are prepared to handle ruff offshore conditions for several days. Bent are currently installing both radar and radar reflector, and the boat are equiped with all typical logging instruments beside Navtex for navigational warnings, auto pilot, chart plotter both in cockpit and inside.  As backup navigation are we also bringing good old paper charts as well as at least 2 hand held GPS-units and a PC with chart programs.  The free SeaClear program, based on scanned charts are a great tool, turning a laptop into a professional navigation system.

Life wests (12 pices) are certainly on board as well as a rescue float for 6 persons. The 4-cylinder Yanmar diesel engine has an 200 liter tank for fuel. The tanks for fresh water has a capacity on 400 liter.

Intro to this Blog

English will probably be the language of preference for most of the blogs, simply since most of the readers (skydiving/EET friends) are not of Norwegian origin, which captain Bent, and I am. This might even add some extra amusement to the english spelling and expressions in this blog!
;-D

The 43 feet beuty - S/Y ZEPHYR, is an Jeanneau Sun Odyssey 43 built in France in 2002. Bent Laursen has been sailing her since he got the boat in 2004.

In this advent before hauling anchor 15-aug-2010 - I'm blogging from my hometown, Oslo, while Bent is preparing the ship in its home harbour in Ishøj, Copenhagen. The first route will go through the Kieler canal before heading south through the English Channel, crossing the Bay of Biscay and hopefully reach La Coruna in northern Spain before saturday 28-aug-2010.

A ruff messure of the distance from Ishøj to La Coruna shows 1235 nm. Given an average SMG (Speed Made Good) of 3 knots, it will take 17 days of non-stop sailing to reach La Coruna.

Given my own partition, which is maximum until 28-aug, it looks like I have to find my destination in either England or France.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Ole Vigs gate,Oslo,Norge