Sailing vacation in Stockholm archipelago – part two

Time for the part two of our little sailing vacation in Stockholm archipelago. To read part one click HERE. The route for our little sailing vacation, the red part is part one and the purple is part two.

Day 4

We woke up at Svartskär and before continuing north we decided to dive in the boat to check how she looks below waterline and to remove the worst growing. She has a lot on the hull which we will remove later when we take her up on land.

After cleaning and the dishes where done it was time to set sail for the next island. It was a downwind/broad reach sail so we decided to hoist our mizzen stay sail for the first time. The mizzen stay sail is kind of a gennaker but for the mizzen mast. For this first time we fixed the sail at the bottom of the main mast, hoisted it in the mizzen mast and hauled it in the cockpit. We are not sure if this was the best way to do it and will try different ways of setting this sail later. After hoisting the sail upside down first we managed to hoist it correctly. It definitely made a difference setting the mizzen stay sail. We gained 0.5 knots in the light wind compared to only having the headsail up.

We arrived to the island of Bullerö and our first mission was to walk across the island to get some water. We haven’t installed our water systems yet or cleaned the water tanks so for this trip we brought freshwater in cans and bottles but they where almost empty so we had to fill them up.

We carried the water all the way back to the boat and fixing the fresh water system will definitely be highly prioritized after the summer vacation.

We fixed dinner and then we walked back to the south side of Buller to watch a Jazz concert. It was way to idyllic sitting on the rocks listening to jazz with the sunset, beautiful red houses and sheep grazing on the fields close by. Stockholm archipelago at its finest.

Day 5

We woke up early the following day and left the bay. We had decided to sail towards Björkskär and that would take a while so we wanted to be on our way early. We set sails and ate breakfast on the go. This day we finally had some wind and we where able to get some speed. We approximately sailed at 5-6 knots and topped at 7 knots, with a really dirty hull. Even though it is quite windy Anne-Mon, due to being long-keeled, is stable and doesn’t lean that much.

When we where close to Björkskär and it was time to take down the sails the engine wouldn’t start. We continued with the sails up and in the meantime we tried to find the reason why it wouldn’t start, and did not find it. We looked at the charts to find a spot we could sail into and anchor to investigate the engine and started sail towards the main land. And then we found the issue, which was that shut off leaver had got stuck in shut off position.

We started the engine and headed towards Björkskär again. We anchored, took a swim and ate dinner. It was raining during the evening and almost all night. The anchorage we choose was not very protected so we didn’t get much hours of sleep since we worried that our anchor would drag, but fortunately it didn’t.

Day 6

We woke up a bit tired but didn’t linger at Björkskär to long. It was time to head for islands closer to Stockholm since we only where to be out one more night. We crossed Björkskärsfjärden to head towards the island of Ostholmen, where we both been a couple of times before. On our way there we practiced narrow passage sailing, quite scary but went really good.

While at Ostholmen we decided to take a look at our sails once more. We have only done that once before and that was indoors. We realized now that we been wrong about some of the sails we have. We realized we have another main sail, which looks much fresher and the one we have set on the mast now. We will probably change to the newer one and have the old one as a spare. We also had a third main sail but it is way to small for our main mast and to big for the mizzen mast. With this second look at our sails we concluded that we have:

• 2 Main sails
• 1 smaller main sail
• 1 Furling genua
• 1 genua (probably the old one before  they added the furler)
• 3 sails for the cutter stay in 3 different sizes.
• 1 mizzen sail
• 1 spinnaker
• 1 mizzen stay sail

Now we only have to try all the sails. We would also like to buy a new furling genua since the one we are using now is old. We keep watch if something comes up second hand that fits our boat.

Day 7

Time to head back. We didn’t need to sail all the way into Stockholm, we got a spot at Vindö and will leave he there for a while. We cleaned the boat and left her there.

We took some days of from the sailboat but now we will go on a little sailing trip again, This time we might be sailing in the northern part of Stockholm archipelago and if the winds are good we might head towards Åland.