Greifswald Departure
Posted at 11:09 AM, Jun. 20, 2005
Finally, finally we are out of Griefswald. The Hanse yard worked long and hard to get us ready for departure and eventually late afternoon the gantry crane blocking our exit from the Hanse yard pontoon swung far enough to the east in 30 kt westerlies to emable us to make a hurried exit into the River Ryck and proceed downstream for 5 k's to the drawbridge at the ancient Baltic village of Wieck (with thatched roofs and cobbled streets) - our timing was impecabble as the operator was lifting it by manual operation and we just had enough room to slip through and head into the Baltic in a 30 knt blow for sea trials. Hanse had provided a boatbuilder from Hamburg (his name is Till) and he acted as liaison bewteen us and the yard to manage the handover and as we were living on the boat it gave us a great opportunity to find a number of things that warranted further work from the yard which he managed - we had a problem with the stern door which took them days to repair and fix, an hour before we left they were spraying the stern under covers while it rained.
After the rig was in on Thursday 9th we worked long days to ready Savarna for departure - Tony Newmarch who had flown up from Auckland for the handover was fantastic and the 15 hour days ensured we slept well.
Our departure from Greifswald was great with Hanse executives on the pontoon and staff sitting on the window sill of the office waving and cheering - we were flying the blue ensign, the RNZYS pennant amd a huge Hanse flag.
There always had to be the potential for a cock up given that we had done so much from NZ and it finally was delivered when we put the headsail on the furler and straight away I could see that we had a 105% overlapping sail not the self tacker I had made in NZ. I rang the sailmaker and he said when he looked at the sailplan he thought the self tacker was to small and not what I would want and proceeded to make a no 1 without talking to me. Thankfully the yard came to the rescue and sold us a self tacker from another 531 that was not ready for delivery. We needed it in the sea trials as it was blowing hard at a constant 30 knts. Two reefs and the self tacker up, short steep seas and the boat was powering through at over 8 knts close hauled - very pleasing and a good comfortable motion in the seaway. We returned to Wieck for the night and came alongside the jetty to tie up before a crowd of 30 odd people and then proceeded to spend the rest of the evening thinking we should hasmd the hat around as dozens of people came to inspect the boat.
At 0530 Saturday we slipped out of Wieck ( it gets dark here at about 2200 and sunrise is shortly after 0400) with the westerly still honking at a steady 30 knots) so we elected to sail up the inside channel of the island of Rugen toStralsund and get to the drawbridge before the 0920 lifting. We missed by an hour and had to anchor up until the next opening at 1720 - the result being that we did not make it to Kuhlingsborn where the owner of the new marina who had invited us to stay was standing by with a TV crew to follow up on the press release they had issued about kiwi's buying a German boat and sailing to NZ.
Tying up on the visitors jetty in the centre of Stralsund again attracted alot of onlookers. 0630 Sunday we slipped our lines and motored through the 12 mile of winding narrow channel to get back out to sea and sail the 70 odd miles ( the first clear and sunny day with 10 - 15 knts we have had since arriving ) to Kuhlingsborn where we were greated by Ulf and Irene Giebel and photographers. We now have some good shots of Savarna under way and will upload when we can. Ulf and Irene hosted us for dinner at a local restaurant with champagne etc. Today we leave for Kiel and hopefully will be able to transit the 95 k Kiel canal tomorrow to Brunspittel and the North Sea.
We are thrilled with the boat - it is quick, comfortable and a crowd attracter. A few teething problems to sort out which we will do with the UK Hanse dealer in the Hamble.