12th February: the launch
Today is THE day, UtPåTur is coming back to her natural habitat, the sea! On this occasion the former owners Jean-François and Sylvie are kind enough to come and help with sailing down the river and the harbour maneuvers.
It is quite an operation because the launch point is situated around 200m from the shipyard. UtPåTur is therefore starting on her journey back to the sea… on a tractor! A sharp turn right, careful with the tree, a turn left, we’re climbing on the sidewalk to avoid a lamppost, the speed dampener in front of the church is no concern at all, the plastic posts on the side of the road are easily passed over, and the convoy finally reaches the river at Pont-l’Abbé.
In reverse, the boat still on the trailer is slowly entering the water, the tractor is backing, backing, then it stops while the boat continues to glide: we are afloat! A quick check of the valves and cable gland to be sure that the boat is not sinking, and here we go, right into the big pool. A thousand thanks to the Pors-Moro team for this beautiful launch, the perfect close to a nice month of shipyard.
But the tide waits for no one: we need to travel down the river before the water leaves it. The weather conditions are great and we slalom between the buoys marking the river course without any wind to blow us off course. First contact with the steering wheel, the hydraulic version: very different from what we knew… it feels like driving a truck! Behind the next river bend, we see Loctudy, and we moor without too much trouble thanks to Jean-François’s and Sylvie’s advice, who know how to run this boat on the engine. Thanks again for coming and helping on this first day!!!
After a goodbye tea onboard, we are alone again, the bow turned towards the horizon where so many pages, all blue, are waiting to be written…
Loctudy, where the adventure begins…
13th – 16th February: first trials
It’s not the first time we buy a boat, we know that the first months are filled with technical issues of all kinds, even more so after one year on the dry. For this reason we planned a first year in known waters. UtPåTur is no exception to the rule and problems start popping up without delay.
First a pipe on the fresh water circuit is leaking when we put it under pressure. More annoying, after a few hours afloat we notice a slow leak on the handle of the black water evacuation valve… it’s not comfortable at all, because it means that slowly but surely, we are sinking! The valve seems fully watertight when closed however, so we start by closing off the heads – anyways the membrane on the evacuation pump explodes after 10 strokes, so no regret, back to the bucket! As we are getting out to look for a new membrane, one of the closing pads on the door breaks, turned brittle by the sun… it’s a lot in one day… we are tired after one month on the shipyard, so we decide to stay in Loctudy a few days to repair both ourselves and the boat. With any luck, it will leave time to the easterly wind to calm down and to Camille’s parents to come visit.
Camille proudly showing her new acquisition to her parents!
Sunday the 16th, the weather is fair, a good day for the first sea trial! We get ready, talk through every single detail, but as soon as the lines are cast the boat starts acting randomly and pointing the bow in the opposite direction to the one we thought… we manage to get out of the harbour without breaking anything, just a little shaken. There is a slight breeze and the centerboard is half-down, this is enough for the boat to jump around when running on the engine… once we are sailing the situation is a little better, but we never steered such a fickle boat. Clearly, we haven’t found a good communication channel yet…
Our very first miles onbard UtPåTur!
Sailing across the entrance to Bénodet then in La Forêt Bay, we learn how to tack, with the staysail and with the genoa (which we need to furl and unfurl at each tack so that it doesn’t stay stuck behind the staysail). We’re slowly getting familiar with the helm. A centerboard is not as good as a fin keel when sailing close to the wind, as confirmed by the 130-degree dead zone we observe…
Most importantly, we need to respect the tradition after changing the name of a boat! To keep bad spirits at bay, we need to cut the old macoui. The macoui is the protective spirit, shaped like a snake, which follows each boat. Cordova’s macoui needs to leave, to make room for UtPåTur’s macoui. The operation starts with a little grog from the Cape Verdes to put it to sleep (it always helps), then we maneuver in such a way to cut our wake three times in border to cut its head. We do this bit with the added complexity of a strong stream pushing us sideways, just so that the new macoui sees that we are true sailors and feels more confident to come and settle. A little more grog to seal the deal, and we can continue our journey. We are not superstitious, but you never know :oD
Macoui cleanly cut in 3 pieces!
Tonight we enjoy the option without any stressful potoon maneuver!
It’s a calm north-easterly forecast this evening, we pick up a mooring in Kersaux cove. No stressful pontoon maneuver, perfect ! We turn on the heater, enjoy the warm shower, such comfort on this big boat… we could almost relax when …”Laure, you know what? There is no gas for the cooker…”
17th – 20th February: slow progress eastwards
Naive like true Norwegians, we had imagined that we would find and resolve all issues within a couple of days, then be on our merry way towards the East – aiming for Pornichet where we had friends to visit.
Starting early in the morning from Kersaux, we plan to stop for lunch on the anchor in the Glénan archipelago before spending the night in Port-Belon, our “home” harbour. The sky is grey and the wind southeast 3 to 4 bft. We start with all sails up, but the wind picks up much more than forecast, so we change for the staysail. No problem with furling the genoa… but when we unfurl the staysail, boom… the furling line jumps out of the furler and twists itself around the forestay. Here we are, with a half-furled staysail and the line stuck… turn around, back to Kersaux’s mooring to untangle all that and fix a spare line on the side of the furler to prevent any future jumping.
At lunch, the gas cooker really doesn’t want to start (the regulator trips every few hours…). In the afternoon we sail around a little to test our new furler set up and train on reefing. Once we feel a little more confident about being able to reef when needed, we set course towards Concarneau. There, we first need to find a suitable mooring space and avoid breaking any other boat, before we can relax. We had never noticed that Concerneau is so narrow! UtPåTur needs two berths and looks like the biggest boat in the harbour…
UtPåTur shining in the beautiful sunset light in Concarneau
UtPåTur runs under amazing conditions for February!
Two days later, there is finally a sunny day with a nice westerly wind. Today we haven’t planned any training, just plain sailing to Lorient. All goes well, we sail first towards the Glénan and see some gannets, then our first dolphins of the year! In the afternoon the wind backs and we are on a slow downwind course. Indeed, these would be perfect conditions to try and hoist the spinnaker … but do we really want that stress right now? We continue slowly with the genoa, until it gets late and we resort to the “diesel breeze” to propel us at 7 knots towards the harbour!
In Lorient Kernevel we are relieved to finally see other big boats, pontoons of the right size, and space between the jetties to turn around! Once moored, we sit on the bunk upstairs, ready to enjoy a quiet tea with a view (and call our agent in Norway who is still trying to sell our house), when … “vrrr vrrr vrrr” says the fresh water pump « vrrr vrrrrrrr vrrrrrr, there’s something wrong here”, it says, “vrrr vrrr come and look now…”
21st – 28th February: a stay in Lorient
The to-do list is filling up faster than we can get through it. There is this valve which is still leaking from the handle and which we need to decide to either repair, or replace (the latter option implying to lift the boat). There is a gas regulator which trips for unknown reason. There is a leaking freshwater pump. And the pump in the heads. And the engine to maintain. And a dodgy weather forecast. We need to accept the situation : we won’t have time to go to Pornichet and come back before Laure’s parents arrive on the 1st of March. Time to settle down and take care of the repairs, and even see one or two friends here in Lorient! It’s always nice to exchange sailors’ stories… we also schedule a video call with our friends on L’Escale, who have experience with leaving everything to move onboard a big board, and who reassure us about our capacity to maintain and sail on a 40 feet (even if we are so used to our beloved 28 feet…)
Thus encouraged, we can roll up our sleeves and get to work!
Regarding the valve, we stop the leak by tightening the handle bolt just a little and we buy a spare valve to be ready if the situation worsens. For now, we are no longer sinking (yeah :o) ) and we even have functioning heads after installing the new pump membrane. Toilets onboard, this is comfy sailing…
It’s quite an upgrade since our years onboard Saltimbanque!
Taking apart the fresh water pump, we find tiny plastic bits in the flaps. We clean them up, add a strainer before the pump to avoid further issues, this should be good for a while.
Not too much to tell about changing the engine oil (apart that we break a brand new pump and realize that the so-called compatible filter was actually not compatible at all). We also change the fuel filters – which, with hindsight, probably triggered the next issue: after a few days the engine chokes when we try to start while still warm … investigation still in progress…
Mission Frankenstein in progress…
Remember the brand new anemometer that we just installed two weeks ago in Pors Moro? Well, it doesn’t work any longer. This time the wind direction is ok, but the speed is dead… we kept the old anemometer (on which the speed was correct but the direction wrong), and decide to combine both into a functioning, Frankenstein unit. Opening the new unit, we see a pool of rainwater at the bottom, drowning the components… well well, let’s add some silicone to the Frankenstein unit…
Still in the category this is really bad luck: the textile backstay of the boat next door gets loose and flies into our wind generator, which stops in the tangle of knots… we were onboard and could prevent further damage, until the harbour master came to cut the knots… but still, really bad luck!
We are very attached to our pontoon neighbour…
Then, there is the gas question… the system worked for twelve years, why is the regulator tripping now? We changed the regulator, the bottle, all the hoses, we looked for a leak with bubble-water spray, we put the system under pressure with our bike pump… no leak… yet the regulator keeps tripping as soon as there is one valve closed. The only plausible explanation is that a piece of the macoui decided to haunt the gas locker when we cut it loose… well, there is no leak, so in the end we decided to remove the valve altogether, and so far it works…
One of our nice training day under the sun
When the weather is good enough, we treat ourselves to a few hours of sailing between Lorient and Groix island, to continue and take control of the boat. Even at sea, surprises await… one day the wind is weak enough to try the spinnaker: everything is clear on the deck, the spi in its sleeve, we tie the tack to the end marked with a “T” and the sheet to the end marked with “S”. Then we hoist. The spi is 2m too short ! How could we have miscalculated by so much ??? Looking for answers, we spread the sail on the ground and understand that the ends are reversed : they are simply marked “T” for “sheeT” and “S” for “tackS”! The sail-maker clearly had an interesting sense of humour…
Two days with nice weather, we plan to spend them in Port-Tudy on Groix for a change. We are about to leave the pontoon when we receive a text message from our agent in Norway: there came an offer for our house, we have 30 minutes to decide if we accept it or not… what do we do? Sitting in the cockpit with our life jackets on, we add up the maintenance costs, substract the market trend, divide by the number of visits so far… finally we send the decisive text message accepting the offer – and go, let’s set cast the lines before the turn of the tide! It’s only once out of the channel with all sails up that we fully comprehend what just happened: we sold the house! Yeepee!
In Port-Tudy, we have the outer harbour all to ourselves and we get into the tender and to shore for the first time. The davit to launch and hold the tender is very practical. A few paddle strokes later we look out to our boat from the shore. What a beautiful boat! We have spent so many weeks with the head buried in her insides, it’s the first time that we take a step back – physically! Back onboard, we celebrate by making breton crepes : today we sold our house, and we didn’t break anything… oh, wait, the day is not over yet… at 9.30pm, another boat is sailing into the outer harbour. The skipper is alone and doesn’t manage to pick up a mooring buoy, so he tries to come alongside. But he turns too soon, drives too fast, and his bow comes right into our stern. The tender acts as a big fender, but doesn’t break. In the end, it was just a scare. But you have to admit: getting run into in the desert outer harbour in February, this is bad luck.
Port Tudy in February… nice and quiet!
And for a magnificent light…
The trip back to Lorient is uneventful and UtPåTur settles back along “her” finger pontoon. Creature of habits!
1st to 20th March : holidays and logistics
Laure’s parents are in Moëlan for a week, we leave the boat in Kernevel to spend a few days onshore with them. It’s the first time we leave her since the launch and we are a little anxious… just like a “babycam”, we use the marina’s webcam to watch over our Precious, checking regularly that she’s still there, happily sleeping and gently rocking on her mooring lines :o) it’s nice to be on firm ground and not busy fixing something for a few days.
We were even lucky enough with the weather to have a daysail to Groix all together!
Now that the boat (or her captains) are used to a little distance, we can consider flying to Oslo to close the house sale. Lorient train station is an easy starting point, the marina’s staff is very helpful and trustworthy: UtPåTur will stay in Kernevel. We intended to stop for a few days, we end up spending the month… “ut” indeed, but not really « på tur »right now…
The sailing season is far from started in Oslo, the sea is not exactly liquid yet…
Finally after a week emptying and cleaning in Oslo, the door closes on an empty house, we pack our sleeping bags and say goodbye to our life onshore and our friends… we’ll come back soon, hopefully, and sailing this time!
Back to Brittany, our friends from Dibona are here like every time we close a chapter: last summer we had just sold Saltimbanque, today they drive us to our new home, the floating home, which is waiting for us, ready to begin a new trip…
Let this be your transition period: it is but the first days of the rest of your lives. You are so focused, so dedicated, so efficient, all you need to learn to accept again with this new boat is that the sea spirits have their own way of doing things to their own timetable: accepting this as best we mere mortals can is truly the way to enlightenment, less stress and greater enjoyment of each moment ⛵️😎 She’s beautiful, and looks so good against the blues.