Trip to Sweden

[dolabriform]

Hi all
My wife's mother is in her 80's and lives in Sweden.
Given the current situation, if things continue in a good way we are contemplating sailing to the south of Sweden in a few months time to visit as we figure that is safer than flying.
We're thinking of the following passage, and would welcome comments.

Leg 1: Shotley to Cuxhaven, 2.5 / 3 days
Leg 2: Kiel Canal
Leg 3: Kiel to Malmo or Ysted, 2 days

We haven't done a journey this long before, and hope to get some significant sailing in before we go.
I have Dayskipper & ICC, currently working through Yachtmaster Coastal, Wife has CC on paper but more experience than that.

Boat is a 36 ft Elan, draft 1.9m.

Thoughts extremely welcome!

Thanks

David

 

[cherod]

Cuxhaven is lovely , harbour of americas is good, cheap , friendly and near to shops with their free bikes .despite its reputation the keil cannal is enjoyable . been considering sweeden myself for this year if uk does not free up . , i think its borders are open even now. you will love the baltic,, tide free ..
ps,, we crossed the North Sea from Cuxhaven to N Scotland with no qualifications .

 

[slawosz]

Tide free or not, Baltic can still be very demanding - just saying Try to visit Bornholm and Christianso, teeny-tiny island north from Bornholm. Its just 40 nm from Ystad. Have fun

 

[jbweston]

That's a sensible itinerary, but will you have at least two watchkeepers and sufficient crew for two watches? Obviously what is 'sufficient crew' depends on how your boat is set up, whether you'll sail only in good conditions and whether each of you is happy being on watch alone. Parts of the North Sea crossing and the German coast off the major rivers can be busy and at night you might need to be using radar as well as keeping a visual lookout, steering and all the usual stuff. Some people are happy and competent enough to do all that alone, some aren't.

I'd be less concerned about the German-Danish-Swedish side east of Kiel as if you have plenty of slack in your timetable there are plenty of stopping off places. The North Sea and the German coast are harder to divide into stages.

When we took Penguin out in 2011 we went Shotley-Den Helder-Brunsbuttel and had good weather all the way. Three crew - me as skipper standing watch alone and an experienced skipper plus his wife who is a competent helm and crew on the other watch. Plus a good autopilot steering most of the way.

Also I guess you know this but at present I believe various borders are closed, but who knows what the situation will be later in the year.

 

[Laminar Flow]

Hi, in 2018, we sailed from Holland to the South coast of Sweden and back, some 1600 miles in all.
Shotley to Cuxhaven in 2.5 - 3 days is, unless sailing non stop, ambitious.
If you want to stop over on the way: All the Zeegats, the passages between the Waddenzee and the open sea, between all the Friesian islands, both Dutch and German, are tidal with very strong currents and can be rather unpleasant and not to say, dangerous in strong wind over tide conditions. All the harbours are on the inshore side of the islands. The channels shift from year to year and even after strong winds or storms. Up-to-date charts are a must. Even so we managed to bounce a couple a times attempting the Gat between Ameland and Terschrelling and while in the middle of the fairway (1.32m draft); we beat a hasty retreat back to open water. Do not attempt these passages in the dark and without extensive local knowledge.
On the recommendation of the harbourmaster in Norderney we left for Cuxhaven at two in the morning and finding our way out to open water was super stressful. The Elbe is very tidal with currents of up to 5kts - time your arrival carefully.
Kiel canal. You can spend the night cheaply in Brunsbuttel immediately to port after passing the locks and the harbourmaster will sell you the vignette for the canal passage. Take two days (at least) to go through the canal. Stay in Rendsburg for a day or two, it is a very nice town and the marina is within walking distance of the centre. The harbourmaster lady is very welcoming and it is a good place to provision the boat as well.
Baltic. Great sailing without tides. Lots of quaint former fishing harbours and idyllic anchorages. With 1.9m draft pay careful attention in the passages between islands and follow the buoys religiously. The retreating glaciers left lots of rocks laying around, cunningly covered by just enough water to fool you. In strong winds, the shallow Baltic devellops a nasty, steep chop.

Enjoy the trip and do not leave too late in the season.

 

[Skylark]

I have very fond memories of doing the opposite trip around 20 years ago, except the passage started nearer to Stockholm.

I bought a boat there. We were a crew of 4. We stopped at Rostock, Germany, a night at anchor inside the canal and our arrival port was Great Yarmouth. I wanted to arrive at Hull but an unforecast, early summer (May) storm had other ideas. ?

(From there the boat was lifted and trucked across country to north Wales)

I imagine that planning the passage would be a great antidote to the current house arrest.

 

[jbweston]

I might have misunderstood, because I thought you were thinking of Shotley to Cuxhaven in one leg, then transit the canal and straight on to Ystad in one leg. Obviously that is simpler to plan and quicker than a shorter North Sea crossing followed by coastal sailing with intermediate stops, but the challenges are different. In some ways easier, in other ways harder.

Your timings are fine for the two or three leg trip provided the weather is OK, but how long you take doing the coastal route could be anything up to a decade. We've been out there nine years now and love it.

 

[All_at_Sea]

Seems like a plan. You could opt for Heligoland as an option if you get foul tides near the river mouth, perfectly safe harbour and very strange/interesting place to visit - very cheap booze!

Depending on tide times you can tuck into a small marina (all rafting) just the other side of the lock at Brunsbuttel, which is a very friendly stopover before doing the canal, which you can easily do in a day if you want.

 

[dolabriform]

I might have misunderstood, because I thought you were thinking of Shotley to Cuxhaven in one leg, then transit the canal and straight on to Ystad in one leg. Obviously that is simpler to plan and quicker than a shorter North Sea crossing followed by coastal sailing with intermediate stops, but the challenges are different. In some ways easier, in other ways harder.

Your timings are fine for the two or three leg trip provided the weather is OK, but how long you take doing the coastal route could be anything up to a decade. We've been out there nine years now and love it.

Hi Julian

You didn't misunderstand, that is what we are thinking of.

We would only tackle it with a good weather window, and if the rules allow we have another who is capable of doing a watch alone who can accompany us.

Thanks for your earlier reply, much appreciated. I want to avoid the coastal route and we're trying to approach this as a delivery trip on the way out, maybe do some sightseeing on the way back.

Regards

David

 

[jbweston]

Seems like a plan. You could opt for Heligoland as an option if you get foul tides near the river mouth, perfectly safe harbour and very strange/interesting place to visit - very cheap booze!

Depending on tide times you can tuck into a small marina (all rafting) just the other side of the lock at Brunsbuttel, which is a very friendly stopover before doing the canal, which you can easily do in a day if you want.

When we spent the night in Brunsbuttel we were safely rafted up six deep, with the most enormous ships passing the other side of the wall about 20 feet away.

The boat inside us was a German charter boat with about six or eight guys who looked like roadies for a heavy metal band or Hell's Angels who'd lost their licences and had taken up sailing in place of driving their Harleys - friendly, but not your typical yacht crew. They told us they'd be leaving at 0530. They repeated this 'estimated time of departure' to each succeeding boat as it arrived on the outside of the raft. 0530 - yeah, right . . . specially as the Germans proceeded to stay up until about three in the morning in the cockpit yarning and drinking whiskey.

Come the next morning we wanted to be off as soon as convenient to the rest of the raft, and so got dressed early but were expecting a leisurely breakfast and to get underway around 0900. Much to our surprise, the German crew were all on deck and ready to go at 05.29 and on the dot of 0530 simply cast the raft adrift and got underway. Thus causing an international incident with the crews outside us that didn't know that German 0530 is 0530, even in a heavy metal or motorcycle gang milieu.

I thoroughly recommend Brunsbuttel and the whole Kiel canal experience. And Rendsburg is lovely if you have time to stop there.

 

[Joker]

Will you be allowed into Germany without a 14 day quarantine?

 

[dolabriform]

Will you be allowed into Germany without a 14 day quarantine?

I have no idea what the situation will be like. As I said we are looking at doing this in few months time, and only if it's possible to cross the borders.

 

[cherod]

maybe if neccessary you could go up round the top at Skagarrak and down ,,you could go up and across from Aberdeen or somwehere like that , all very speculative at th moment .

 

[pandroid]

The only significant hazard on your route is the Elbe estuary. Anything over a F4 against the Ebb and you don't want to be there. Getting weather and timing right is crucial, but you can stop in Norderney or Helgoland to assist with this. Apart from that it is all possible to do in Day sailing. We've done it a number of times.
As above, you cant do it now. Tourists are not permitted to move on a lot of the route and harbours are locked down, so you'll have to wait for things to ease up.

 

[johnalison]

Hi David. We did your trip a number of times. We did non-stop three times, once in a Sadler 29 in three days, and the other times in the HR in 50/51 hours to Brunsbuttel. As we got older, we went via Friesland. I enjoy Cuxhaven but you could miss it on the way out because if you get to the mouth of the Elbe at the right time the tide will easily take you to Brunsbuttel. Brunsbuttel was a poky little harbour but I believe it may have been re-developed. If not, we used to stop at Cuxhaven and then through to Rendsberg mid-canal the next day, thus breaking the duller bit.

We always did the Baltic in day-sails. It is worth being a bit flexible in case of the weather, there being possible stops on both the German and Danish sides On the Danish side, the obvious stops are Gedser (boring) and Klintholm which is much nicer. Malmo is a nice place but you are handier for the town in Ystad, which has a brewhouse. Gislovs Lage is another stop ust short of Ystad.

On the German side, we have often made this coast the focus of our cruise, but possible stops among many are Heiligenhafen, Kuhlungsborn, Warnemunde and Vitte. It is also possible to zigzag between Denmark and Germany if the weather decides so.

As mentioned, Bornholm is well worth visiting, especially the east, and there are wonderful spots around Rugen too,

 

[cherod]

Rugen is a lovely area