Leaving early is not always easy if you come early... Alone again as crew member Johannes had to go back to work last night. Left the beautiful Christiansø early in the morning, got the beloved code sail up in front and went north for the city at Sweden's lower right corner – Karlskrona. I prepared my self for a 10-12 hour shift in the cockpit. Here we go again...avocado, eggs, water, nuts and carrots haha... Had straight winds and went fishing for some micro plastic on this leg. I wanted to get one sample from these waters south of Sweden. Last one I did was between Denmark and Germany.

Having sailed half way with an electric engine, I have to say it has been a great experience. Yes, there has been some unfortunate issues in my case (hydro generation), with the shifting of versions of engines and updating batteries, gateways, displays and other "power intelligence gadgets". But I assume that it is part of the game these days when adopting new technology. The most important job for the drive is obviously to push the boat when needed and in that field my silent friend under the hull has been, and is, doing a great job. OK FOR SHORT RANGE MANEUVERS? By now I have tested it for short ranges some 90+ times in and out of marinas, up against rivers, when passing opening bridges or

I love this remote and charming island and port. It is Danish, it is beautiful and it is full of nice memories from earlier trips...first time when my kids were 6 and 10 and we sailed over here with our 42-footer. I usually say that every year not visiting Christiansø and Svenska Högarna (remote island in far East part of Stockholm archipelago) is not a complete sailing year:-) I will publish more images from our short and lovely stop-over here . Here is a link for you in the meantime: https://bornholm.info/en/christiansoe/ We spent a day in the marina working as part of Johannes job is to keep up the online and phone support service for a car sharing community – gomore.com – and the need fo

The wind picked up after sunset and all night. No time for breakfast. Getting pass the channel bridge as soon as possible was on the the morning agenda. 07.00 we were there waiting and yeees it opened up for us and som few others on the other side:-) Falsterbo, yes I love you, but it is somehow always nice to leave you behind... After 12 hours pretty tough and wet upwind sailing we gave up and steared towards Kåseberga. Well there we were guided by the very friendly marina boss and very soon after the boat was fixed we found ourselves up on the hill at Ale's Stones in the sunset – a Viking ship monument built in stones, most likely dated to be 1,400 years old (Ale's Stones on Wikipedia). The

Stayed the day in Copenhagen to settle some work and some other issues. I realised that the marina was just next by Copenhagen's most famous tourist attraction – the mermaid and sculpture "Lille Havfruen". Had to get a picture of her...and without all the Asian tourists swarming around her haha...they were everywhere:-) The little mermaid. Google her and you will get a nice story... Then, by mere coincidence I met Øivind, a great "partner in crime" in terms of electric sailing. He has bought a spectacular sailboat with an electric engine and feeds his battery park with solar and wind. I will come back on that and his exciting project in a separeate post later on. Øivind showing me his electr

After a few days "long haul" sailing from Kiel via Rødby, I arrived Falsterbo in Sweden, where Clara 17 and Johan 24 joined in as crew. Two young and smart friends. The original plan was to sail with them to Christiansø, but due to the delay we had to re-arrange the plan and make the trip to Copenhagen instead. We more or less passed the project's halfway mark 1000 Nautic Miles at the same time as we sailed spinnacker under the Öresund Bridge. Two memorable moments. Arriving Copenhagen, we had sailed 1022,7 NM since June 5th. The Öresund Bridge, connecting Denmark and Sweden between Copenhagen and Malmoe. Clara 17, a bright college student, thinking a lot about what's going to happen as she

Right outside of Kiel the wind died. I didn't want to waste the new batteries on this leg and certainly not yet, so I let myself drift around. After some 26 hours I gave up the drifting towards Rostock in Germany and decided to try to rather drift north towards Rødby in Denmark instead. I had crew waiting for me up in Falsterbo, Sweden so no time for the extra miles to Rostock. That was sad since I had looked forward to meet with scientists at the Rostock Marine Center. But such is life in sailing. Just have to save Rostock for another year... July 20th, 20.46 – Kind of majestic to sail from Kiel out to this guy, but after drifting around it for more or less 12 hours the majestic-ness was go

Haven't heard from us in a while? Well, some 808 Nautic Miles have been sailed and lots of things have happened while we have had some unfortunate tech events following along. Leaving Kiel today for Rostock, some days later than expected. But we have sailed through beautiful waters and we are happy. THE SHORT STORY: Remember the Skärhamn visit in June? When the pod-drive was switched to an updated, new one? That update made the charging function work alright and I managed to recharge my batteries by sailing. But still, some spooky incidents troubled me and my crew. One was that the display suddenly showed that the batteries were empty. Not only that, the engine simply stopped, so actually th

Nothing happened since July 3rd? Absolutely... Arriving Kiel, sailing from Nyborg, passing by Kolby at Samsø, fixing battery issues in Aarhus, party with great young friends in Langør/Samsø, sailing down from Læsø to Bønnerup, making a short stop in Skagen, picking up new crew in Havsstensund, checking in with customs in Strömstads, non-stop racing up from Marstrand, spending lovely days with the übercool M32s in at "Match Cup Sweden" and changing batteries in Långedrag. The stories from the above days will be published one by one...thank you for your patience.

I grew up hearing about the Kieler Woche. The sail racing bonanza that most of my sail racing buddies attended, but not me. I guess I was not a good competitor enough, or I focused on other sailing adventures instead? Anyway, on the way down I grabbed a plastic tube from the waves in some 7-8 knots... We can only hope it was not thrown into the water on purpose... Sailing in and around Kiel has been hanging there in front of me as a personal milestone since the days back in the 1980-ies. Those were the days when I was sail racing Flipper with my friend Anders. Flipper – a dinghy for two. Anders and I never made it to Kieler Woche. But today. Here. Finally. Kiel. Check! Much has happened sinc

We were excited to take off for the island Samsø. We had a meeting booked with Mr Samsø himself, Søren Hermanson – the man who turned the island and municipality into energy independence by investing in the building of their own wind power plants. After hard work for 10 years convincing the island's inhabitants that this was not only a smart and healthy idea, it was also lucrative. The sun, the wind and the water. I can't stop loving the life they bring to us. Farmers, pirates, rebels? Nope, just very smart off-gridders:-) They have paid their last oil invoice from the mainland. Since the transformation into wind power they are invoicing the mainland for the surplus electricity delivered fro

The issues with my hydrogeneration continues, we just had to brake the seal and charge via shore power again. The harbour master told us that it most likely was wind power electricity in the socket. I love Denmark! Torqeedo, who follows our project with full support and understanding, had assigned a local agent to come and double-check the installation. Wow, my new friend Henry Thomsen came and checked it and we found out that the batteries and the control unit may need an update. He could fix it in two days – but we were leaving the same day. – Ok, but I can drive down to where you are and fix it. Henry is a true electric engine evangelist and my new hero for sure! He even managed to get

A few nice stops and some party-party. First out to charming Læsø after reclaiming some sleep in Skagen. On Læsø we sadly had to say bye-bye to Martin and then we sailed down to Bønnerup where we picked up Amalie and Lisa. From there we took off to a rather unusual place, Øer Sluser after some dramatic sudden wind gusts. Next morning southward to the picturesque fishing village Langør on Samsøø's east coast. Tacking all the way into Langør...the focused crew got us in safely. We managed to squeeze in some party-party in Langør and after that it was time to continue up to Aarhus to meet with an service engineer to check the hydro generation and battery situation again. Here some snaps from so

After an overnight stop just north of Havstenssund to pick up the crew for Skagen we want more or less straight west while the wind slowed down and slowly turned more north which suited us well. Always nice to be on the way to Denmark. Love that place:-) Somehow we missed to take a groupie so not even trying to pretend like it wasn't photoshopped...here you go, all three in one shot: Martin, Oscar and Johannes. Great to have you sailors onboard! As you can see the wind left most potential sailing dramas aside. So the evening called for the creation of some home made ones to entertain these experienced sailors: Martin a full fledge examined Sea Captain and Johannes one time crossing the Atlan

Suddenly a little unexpected chat over the phone created some extra 96 Nautical Miles archipelago sailing up north. In one day more or less. A single handed race against the clock before leaving for an open water leg to Skagen in Denmark, some additional 80 Nautical Miles westward. I was actually going to sail in a chill pace down to Långedrag, relax there for a day and wait for the new crew to hop on haha. Can't complain at all. Sailing north in the summer on the west coast offers crazy sunsets up your nose. Nope, no reason to complain. Winds steady from the west and S/Y Johanna is munching Nautical Miles as if they were candy... But nope, I didn't believe it out there and I dont believe it

What an exciting expo opportunity – to meet people in Marstrand during the über cool sail racing event Match Cup Sweden with the M32 catamarans sailed by some of the best competitive sailors in the world. And to be assigned the dock spot next to these mean machines. Kept me busy all morning just sitting there watching the action. The M32 cats are insane...all carbon, high-performance, one-design multihull. Each of the two hulls - weigh only 82 kg and feature increased forward buoyancy to reduce nose diving. The boat weighs 510 kg and sails around with 52 square meters of sails – a very high ratio in terms of sail to weight. Torqeedo and Swedish agent KGK Motors was here to promote electric s

Waking up in Vinga knowing I had no power at all and was technically in the way of every other boat in there made me regret that I ever left Långedrag. I took a early morning bath to re-boot my mind hoping it would solve the dilemma by itself. An inverted selfie of a naked early morning dip. Thankfully, people out on remote islands are nice people and quite solution oriented…so everything went well when untangling the marina mess and by lunch I was the only boat left in there. In a wind shift in the afternoon, I challenged the current and took off with a plan in mind to sail to Marstrand and fix the dilemma when getting there, a day or two later. But the same evening I received an new sms fr

Two more trips to Erlandsson’s and the construction back on the transom was in place. Felt slightly trapped in Långedrag Marina after these long warm days and decided to take off for the island outside of Gothenburg holding the epic Vinga Lighthouse as it is an undisputed landmark and local trophy. The little innocent evening leg to Vinga offered some unexpected drama. With the wind and pretty stubborn current in my back, I entered into the narrow marina with sails down and little possibilities to control the speed. So, I turned on my engine after I had inspected the narrow pier/marina and realized that there was no room for me at all. I had to be pretty harsh with the reverse to slow down.