Finding the sailor within you - and a Nordic Folk Boat

6. Solo with a seven-year-old

- photos by Keith, David, Linnea and Edwin -

Monday and Tuesday were spent sailing with Vendela, 7 years old. The photos are some general shots from the day before - I never imagined I could handle a camera and the boat and a 7-year-old all at once ...

It was entirely Vendela's idea, we went for a day trip with her sister Linnea and her father Lonny on Saturday, even before we'd put into land she'd hatched the plan that the next voyage would be just her and me and spending the night on the boat ... on that family trip she was all the time reacting as if she was frightened though it felt like it was something that belonged to the situation rather than any real fear, but still I really wondered if it would work with just the two of us, including making sure that she was completely safe, and felt safe (quite different things, of course!), that she didn't get bored or too tired: but on her own she showed never a trace of fear, doubt or hesitation. Her complete trust in me as skipper was very touching, and I tried to be worthy of it, though I wasn't at all sure beforehand that I could.

Her first idea was to spend the night at the little bay we had our picnic before, really not much more than a few hundred metres round the corner, which gives an impression of somewhere to make for when there's no wind, but this time there was plenty of wind, and she was perfectly happy to press on for the next place, another old fishing village though one which has been developed into a holiday centre.

We had 80 cm waves for the half-hour nearest the open sea and Vendela called it storm, said she was OK with that, but didn't want anything more stormy ...

When we arrived there another sailing-boat owner came down to the jetty and waved, I thought he was there to do something with his own boat, but after our contact was finished he want back to his house, so it seemed he had seen our sails and come down specially to see us in: he told us which was the guest harbour (the sign wasn't very clear), helped me in by catching a rope and tying it up, told us that there wasn't anyone to take any money because the season hadn't started yet, that the toilets were closed but there were others open 24 hours a day, with a shower, free, at the camping site, he recognised my boat because his friend kept his in the same harbour as me and he'd seen it and wondered whose it was, said (as everyone does) what a fine boat the Nordic Folk Boat is ...

It must be a nightmare in the season, with crowds of people and everything regulated and charged for, but for us, two weeks before midsummer, it was perfect: there were kitchens if we wanted to make soup or cook anything, hot water for washing, clean proper toilets, an adventure playground where Vendela could go on swings, slides, and all sorts of other things; she didn't want to use the indoor kitchen but preferred the raft with a sauna on it which was moored to the jetty and on which a sea-gull had built its nest and laid two beautiful mottled eggs: she thought it such incredible fun to eat meat-balls out of the saucepan with baked beans out of the tin, and when I couldn't find the spoons she rejected the idea of using the back-end of a toothbrush for the rice-pudding and used her fingers instead ...

We were both sleepy enough to sleep at 9 pm, she didn't even insist on her usual story but actually asked if I was too tired and accepted immediately when I said really I was ... she only stirred once to unzip her sleeping bag because she was too hot, though I had an awful night, waking a dozen times, don't know why really, except that these days I don't sleep very well away from home ... I woke, not at all refreshed but not able to sleep any more, around 6 am and full of doubts about how to handle things, because I had to be somewhere else at 2 pm and really had no idea how many hours it might take to get back: whether to wake her so she could go on the swings again before leaving, which felt impossible, or just up sail and go without waking her which also felt impossible, or wait till she woke naturally which might be hours and what on earth would I do in the meanwhile ... but by the time I'd finished thinking all that she had her eyes open and was looking at me wondering what was going to happen next and ready to start the day together ...

After a hot-water wash and breakfast, the wind was so strong that just getting the sails up took all my strength, the whole thing was just more than I could manage and I was wondering at what point I would have to ring Karin and ask her to fetch Vendela home by car; but somehow I managed to work out that I had to take down the sails again and just use the engine, and - lo and behold! - out in the bay the wind dropped and I could leave the engine ticking over and the rudder fixed pointing straight and easily get the sails up again ... and after that I didn't touch the engine again ;-)

At one point on the way back I was convinced she was bored stiff and it hadn't been a good idea, she was just sitting, not looking at anything, not reading, not saying anything; then suddenly: 'can I steer?!' and I don't know when I've seen her so lively and engaged in life, starting off looking at me all the time and asking all the time if what she was doing was right, and over a period of about half-an-hour going over to actually watching the fore-sail to see when it started flapping and knowing that she had to steer towards me and then centre things again when it stopped, and looking at a fixed point on the land to see if she was steering straight

The best moment for me was when I made the final landfall solo without the engine, a mixture of luck and judgement involving sailing rather fast just past the jetty and quite a way out, then turning rather sharply in at the last moment, letting the sails down and fixing the boat's angle relative to the wind to reduce speed at the right amount - slow enough to make sure she's almost stationary when she reaches the jetty so she doesn't crash into the beach, fast enough that she won't stop or lose direction too soon - then setting the rudder just right so she would just touch the rubber tyres hanging from the jetty, fixing both rudder and sails stable enough that I could leave them to go forward to pick up the rope and climb in land with it to stop her completely and tie her up quickly at the front, then to the back and do the same before she swings out away from the jetty, risking either grounding on the beach or knocking against the neighbouring fishing-wharf ... sad that there was no-one to see and appreciate it, but on the other hand, if there had been it probably wouldn't have worked ;-)

As 'cream on the cake' Vendela's favourite swan not only recognised us and remembered he had got fed last time we came in, he brought the whole family, with wife and three delightful tiny fluffy newly-hatched cygnets! Well, there were three in the water when they arrived: then we saw a tiny beak poking out from between the mother's wings, so there was obviously one on her back ... then 'plupp! plupp! plupp!' and there were six of them in the water, so there must have been three of them on her back hiding under her wings ... of course we had to fix some food quick enough that they would learn they'd done the right thing in following us, but Vendela was so excited she was a bit paralysed and couldn't see the food box right under her nose, so we had to sort that out too ...

these photos by Linnea and Edwin

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