After almost a week with rain all day and night, we awoke this morning to dry weather and glimpses of the sun. On the other hand the wind is now blowing hard from the west. And the easterly wind promised on Thursday has gone with the wind. The core crew – which consists primarily of the skipper, the mates and the foremen for the six rooms in the ship – held a meeting this morning. In order to discuss the possibilities that are open to us.
Some were most inclined to set sail, even though the headwinds in the coming days might mean seven days hard tacking across the North Sea. Or more. Others were more inclined to take it easy and wait for the right wind. As the Vikings did. Still others proposed that we could go a little way up along the Norwegian coast. And cut about 40-50 sea miles off the distance to Orkney.
London or Iceland. The points of view swayed to and fro for a couple of hours but it is difficult to ignore facts:
The Sea Stallion cannot go closer to the wind than 60 degrees. In a hard wind with reefed sail it is more like 70 degrees: This means that the Sea Stallion on its way to Orkney will sail in the direction of London or Iceland on the long leg across the North Sea. And only move itself towards the goal – Orkney – with 1.5-2 knots per hour. There are approximately 350 sea miles from Lindesnes to Orkney. That is a little more than seven days uninterrupted sailing on a rough sea in an open ship without any possibility of getting shelter from wind and water.
Or put in a different way: When a Viking ship sails with the wind dead ahead – tacking up against the wind – the ship has to sail about three times as many sea miles as there are on the direct route.
We wait. After lunch – a crateful of splendid self-service shrimps from our tremendously hospitable Norwegian hosts Jarle and Anne Tone – the skipper took stock of our situation:
“We have three possibilities. We can wait. We can tack. Or we can let ourselves be towed by ‘Cable One’. We shall wait! While we are waiting, we shall take some one-day trips out to train and practice some security measures”.