Rattlin' ratlines

I am measuring the rigging. We have drawings and rigging plans, but they are not very accurate. Seems that a lot about this ship is not very accurate...


Yes, it is a ratboard. Yes it is on the dock, right next to the ship. No, it is not supposed to be there, it should be in the shrouds 12 meters above deck.


And here is the spanker mast from which it fell. I was up the top of the lower mast, just about half a meter under the crosstrees, when a ratboard lashing snapped under my foot. It was expected, everything is in a slightly dodgy condition here. There is a reason that we are scheduled for almost another year in refit...

Click the picture by the way and take a closer look at it. The middle shroud is... well... not very straight... The shrouds and stays are tensioned like it was a natural fibre rig on a 10 meter boat. Ratlines are attached with thin whipping twine, in a remarkably clumsy fashion.


A picture of the port topside. Our welders are kept busy whith a lot of different projects. The dark marks here are burns from welding on stringers on the inside of the hull. I know nothing about structural dimensioning and solid mechanics of steel ships, but I am pretty sure those extra stringers are well needed. The present situation is rather severe, but around the beginning of next year this ship is going to kick some serious Singaporean ass!


And here is our workshop, where a lot of the magic is going to take place. A big tarp roof, surrounded on three sides by shipping containers.


Another little job we did today. Disassembling some hydraulics in the engine room. This tank was one of few items still fitted in the otherwise very bare ship.

The heat is on!

I have just finished another day at work. Today we have installed two ladders in the hull for the welders to get easier access to the forepeak, and we built a paint storage. Almost anyway, a little left to do with the storage. And it is hot. You just get soaking wet with sweat, and there is nothing to do about it but to constantly drink shitloads of water. Walking into the office is like entering a fridge, but the temperature in there is actually like a warm summer day at home. Going out again is like entering a sauna. You are almost expecting someone to shout out, with a pretended finnish accent, "shut the door quickly, perkele!"

Windy II

I am in Lumut! Or more precise, I am a fifteen minute drive north of Lumut, at the campus of UniKL MIMET. The acronym stands for University of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Institute of Marine Engineering and Technology. Windy II is berthed at their dock and we rent two apartments in the teachers accommodation block. We are kind of in the middle of nowhere, which is actually quite enjoyable. I spend the days working, hanging out in our large living room and just trying to adjust to living in an apartment after four months in the fo’c’sle of Søren Larsen. It is a bit of a shock to have your own bedroom after sharing a large walk-in closet with five other people, an anchor locker and a bosuns workshop. I felt lost and bewildered in the beginning, but I am starting to enjoy it now.


Windy II. An unshapely lump of steel today but when we are finished with her, she will be the pride and beauty of Singapore!


My room. A bunk, a plastic chair and a table that I made the day before yesterday.


View from my window in the morning

Malaysia is an interesting country and I really look forward to spending some time exploring. Of course it is poor by European standards, but people appear to have what they need for a good living and it seems that there is some serious hi-tech too. Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (aka KL) were the tallest skyscrapers in the world for many years, an iconic picture of the boom of the Southeast Asian tiger economies. Malaysia is located just a tiny bit north of the equator, tropical, hot and humid. The country is divided into peninsular Malaysia, bordering Thailand, and the two states of Sarawak and Sabah on Borneo, an island which Malaysia shares with Indonesia and with the miniature kingdom of Brunei Darussalam. Lumut is on the west coast of peninsular Malaysia, halfway from KL to the Thai border. This is where the Straits of Melaka connect the Indian Ocean with the South Chinese Sea, a cultural crossroad and a region soaked in history. Here, Europe has mingled with Asia for hundreds of years. The waters are sheltered and Portuguese, Dutch and British ships have come here for local trade, or more often on their way to China. The Eastindiaman Götheborg sailed here on her reenactment voyage to China a few years ago, following the old routes of the Swedish East Indian Company (see the list of links to the left). Up until recently, the Straits of Melaka were infamous for pirate attacks on modern cargo vessels. Last Saturday I met a German engineer at Dooke’s bar in Lumut, who worked on a pirate hunting navy ship. Apparently, the hunt has been successful the last few years and the area is now regarded as safe. Pirating has moved on to the coasts of Somalia. Malaysia is officially a Muslim country, but all religions are practiced freely. People from the large populations of Indians and Chinese are usually Hindu, Buddhists or Taoists. Occasionally, some serious tension surfaced during the previous century, but today the country looks like a role model of cultural, ethnical and religious tolerance. It is supposed to be a democracy, with freedom of speech and so on, but I actually have to access the Internet over a proxy server to be able to reach many sites, including Facebook and this blog. Censorship and control of information is an ugly bastard. The area around Lumut is a sprawling mix of city and countryside. Almost everywhere is some sort of industrial presence and residential areas. The rest of the landscape is covered by oil palm plantations and small hills with remnants of primordial rain forest vegetation.


Night at the market in Sitiawan


Monkeys on the side of the road opposite of the campus


The waves of the Straits of Melaka, rinsing over my feet.

I have been on Windy one week now. The workforce is an international bunch. The owner is from the UK, and so is the surveyor who is here as a consultant, but they live in Singapore and Hong Kong respectively. Captain Ulf is a Swede like me. We have group of Filipinos, including an architect and a mechanical engineer doing CAD-drawings, a team of welders and the owners wife who does cooking and a little bit of everything. The deckhands, Mel and Ikrom, are from different parts of Indonesia but have worked many years in Singapore. Esther, Chinese Singaporean, takes care of our economy. The only Malaysian here is Bas, our storekeeper. I really enjoy work and life here, even though I miss the people from Søren Larsen a lot. All the colleagues are super nice and friendly. There is a playful, happy and very welcoming atmosphere. Of course there are differences in work attitudes and communication, but I am sure we will sort those things out. I have been given a lot of responsibility from day one, which is incredibly inspiring. Most of my time has been spent doing a very thorough inventory of all the rigging equipment. Apart from that I have done some shopping, assisted Ulf with calculations and discussed various solutions, rigged a mock-up for a sail plan suggestion and so on. A little bit of everything, really.


Mel on the beach last Sunday


Ikrom and Ulf at the market in Sitiawan, last Thursday.


Our living room in the evening. Allan, Kenneth, Lee-Ann and Ikrom are turning it in to an internet cafe.

Touring the South Island

5 April
I am in Lumut! But let's start from the beginning, or at least from last Tuesday, when I woke up at Paradiso in Nelson.

31 March
I started off pretty early in my rented Corolla, after rinsing my beer-soaked camera in the bathroom sink. But before even leaving the place, I picked up a hitch-hiker. I really like the way this kind of traveling life brings people from different backgrounds together. Joya was a So Cal girl who had missed her bus to Abel Tasman national park, just the place where I was going. It turned out to be a really great day. I was planning to go on a seal swimming tour in Abel Tasman (yes, they actually do that!), but when we arrived the seal tour was canceled. So instead I joined Joya on her itinerary for the day, which included hiking and some sea kayaking. Abel Tasman really deserves a couple of days of exploring, not the less than a full day I gave it. It covers about 20 - 30 kilometers of coastline and stretches far inland too. The lush green mountain sides look a little like the beautiful Bay of Islands up north, where we spent some time with Søren Larsen. The kayaking took us to Adele Island, where we watched seals and paddled into a small cave. Our guide was Tom, born in Germany but very Kiwi. He told us about New Zealand birds and eco systems. I stayed that night in Backpackers Beach Camp, a nice and quiet hostel in Marahau. Here I met a bunch of other travelers, including a retired English couple who were exploring the hostel dorms of the Kiwi outback in a rental car.


Abel Tasman National Park. Anchorage Bay, this is where the water taxi dropped us off and the hiking started.


Watery Cove, gathering around the kayaks


Starting off from Watery Cove



Joya, my travel companion for the day, enjoying the kayak tour


Seal lazying on the rocks of Adele Island. Can't you see it? Hey, it's right there, the dark spot under the seagull.

1 April
I woke up early again on Wednesday morning. The goal for the day was to reach Arthur's Pass, a little village in the middle of the Southern Alps. I drove along small countryside roads across from Abel Tasman on the north coast, to Westport on the west coast. From there I continued south to Greymouth, passing some of the most fantastic beach sceneries I have ever seen. The blowholes and pancake rocks of Punakaiki were totally gnarly dude... The landscape is wild, untamed, and unpopulated.


A rear mirror view, driving along the beaches of the west coast of the South Island


A small rocky beach somewhere between Westport and Greymouth


Me on above mentioned beach


Sunlight on the coast of the Tasman sea


Pancake rocks in Punakaiki. These rocks are the result of alternating layers of soft and hard marine sediments. Thousands of years of erosion from the swell of the sea have shaped the rocks as they were pushed up by seismic movement.


Punakaiki blowhole starting to spew out a mist of water drops. At high tide, the ocean swell pushes water up into cavities in the pancake rocks. Pressure is built up and water mist and water jets are pushed out through holes high above sea level. I swear, it sounds like a dragon from a tacky New Zealand fantasy movie!


Another set of pancake rocks


And here she blows! Can you see the rainbow?


Surfers on a beach south of Punakaiki. Big swell.


Yes, it is a penguin warning sign


From Greymouth I headed inland again, across the plains, with the Southern Alps in the background


Reaching the mountains...


Just after sunset, I passed a roof that sheltered the road from a little stream coming down from the mountains

It was already pitch dark when I reached Arthur's Pass, the highest part of the crossing of the mountains. The place is so small, I more or less drove through it before I realized that I was there. Just a railway station and a couple of houses along the road. I found a vacant bunk in a dorm at the Mountain Guesthouse. A clean and well kept little place, inhabited by the type of people who prefer single handed hiking in the serenity of the mountains, rather than the adrenaline rushes of the usual New Zealand backpacker playgrounds. The late hours of the night was spent in front of my computer, editing pictures and updating my blog.

2 April
I had a morning flight to catch from Christchurch, so again it had to be an early breakfast. The morning was crisp and clear when I left the guesthouse, with frost on the windows of the car. It felt like a nostalgic little reminder of home, a slight touch of winter before the tropics.


The South Alps are crossed by a very scenic railway with a station in Arthur's Pass. On the morning when I left, the valleys were covered by a thick mist.


Further down the mountain, the mist got thicker and thicker. I was driving through a wide valley. I guess.


Eventually the fog disappeared. Could this be the region from which the footage for the plains of Rohan was taken?

I arrived in Christchurch with perfect timing to return the car, check in at the airport and without hurry get on my plane, just before it took off. Arriving in Auckland I rented another Corolla. How can two cars so dissimilar bear the same name? This new car was small and brightly red, with six manual gears and exact and distinct properties. It totally lacked the charm and personality of the old wreck I left behind in Christchurch. I used it to pick up a hotknife for my new ship from a local company, and to get to Steve and Rosie in Titirangi where I had left my baggage. Public transport in Auckland is... less developed. I just couldn't be bothered to spend hours and hours on buses and stations to do something that could be fixed in a fraction of the time with a car. Later that afternoon, when I checked in to the YMCA in Auckland, I bumped into Ai Sumihara, who I met during my week surfing on Ninety Mile Beach up in Northland. She is a photographer-dive instructor-surfer-student from Japan who has lived a large part of her life in other places: Canada, Thailand, New Zealand, Britain, etc. We decided to go out for a beer, but ended up having quite a few of them at the Crib on Ponsonby Road, to the tunes of a live rock cover band.

Not driving on the right side of the road

For a couple of weeks now, the blog is going to be in English, as an ever changing postcard to all the awesome people on Søren Larsen. Soon there will also be a little something here about Windy II, my new ship in Malaysia. To the great joy of all readers, I now have a camera again (thanx dad!). This time it is waterproof and shockproof so I hope it will last a little longer than my old one did. I have only used it for three days but it has already been in melee with both fresh water, saltwater and beer.

The last few days of refit were hectic. I had committed to finish off the jobs I had started, and I did. More or less. Among other things, the new panel outside Botany Bay is in place – thanks for the help Boris, and the rotten cap rail, stanchion and davit supports have been replaced – thanks for the help Rusty! Wednesday one week ago was my last day at work and we finished it off with the mother of all vodka-spank a butt parties around a bonfire down at the “beach”. I left early the next day. Not. Tried but couldn’t. Let us not get into detail but eventually I got on the bus to Auckland, a sad good bye from all the people I have met onboard.

Friday evening and a big part of Saturday was spent in Auckland taking care of a bunch of boring necessities of life, washing clothes, sending stuff to Sweden to avoid overweight on the flight, etc. I finally got on my plane to Wellington on Saturday afternoon. Wellington – “Windy Welly”. My favorite town in the antipodes so far! Not that I have seen very many towns here, and not that I stayed very long in Welly, but anyway. I’ll definitely put it high up on my list, somewhere near Amsterdam, Visby and Kyoto. I met a laid back and relaxed, yet creative and vibrant atmosphere. The city is located on the very southern tip of the North Island of New Zealand, on the shore of Cook Strait and more or less on the latitude of the dreaded Roaring Forties. It is surrounded by hills, mountains and sea. The scenery is stunningly beautiful; of course, this is after all New Zealand. My guide to the place was Laura, who sailed with us on one of the six-day trips earlier during the season. We visited a viewpoint outside the city, looked at the works of a local sculpture artist, tried delicious mussels at a beach café, visited the Te Papa museum, had super yummy Mexican food at a place on famous Cuba Street and ate experimental sushi at a really cool little Japanese restaurant. We also tried eating ice cream in a roaring forties gale. It is summer still, it had to be done. The Te Papa Museum is something like a national museum of New Zealand. They had a fascinating exhibition of whale skeletons and a very famous conserved squid. It was only a couple of meters long thou. (Jarren, was it you who said it was basically as big as blue whale?). Also at the Te Papa Museum right now is an exhibition of Monet paintings and other impressionist art. It was fantastic to see the works of one of my absolute favorite artists, the ever so cheesy, ever so genius Claude M.

I grabbed a Monday afternoon ferry across Cook Strait, from Wellington to Picton. My first impression of the South Island from the boat was dreamlike. High mountain peaks levitating over clouds in a far distance, pale and unreal. After disembarking in Picton, I proceeded to rent a car for the daring expedition into the terra incognita of the South Island. “Budget” was the key word at the stalls of the rental companies, and the vessel with which I ended up was quite a character. Unruly and unbalanced, with a rubbery bungee-cord type of response to the helm. One moment, she tries to luff, hard like a brigantine with oversized mainsail, and in the next second she bears away and is about to broach straight down the roadside bushes. But she carries me where I want to go and I love her.



The last thing I did before leaving Welly was to buy a memory card for my new camera. Unfortunately it did not take the same type of card as my old one. So the pictures from this trip starts on the road from Picton to Nelson. I left Picton early evening and arrived in Nelson a little after sunset. It is interesting in this country how large the distances are, and how long it takes to drive them on small, winding mountain roads. It was just a few centimeters on the map for fcku’s sake, how can it take a couple of hours? I drove past vineyards and hills and up into a mountain range. It seems that this Island is very sparsely, but also pretty evenly populated. It has a nice mix of scenic wilderness and pastoral countryside charm. The sun had already set when I reached the highest part of the road over the mountains. As the valley opened in front of the car, I drove out of the hillside forest and the landscape was clearly visible in the lingering light. Open farmlands, a big bay stretching in from the sea, blue hills and mountains far away, and a new moon hovering over it all. It was so beautiful I almost thought someone was joking with me.



In Nelson, I hooked up with Amy, our ex-cook from Søren Larsen. She helped me finding a hostel, the Paradiso. Perfect for anyone who likes parties, pools and spas. We spent a couple of hours playing cards and drinking local beer until we more or less passed out somewhere round midnight. The local beer by the way, it is definitely worth a few words. It is served at a place called the Rigger’s, just a couple of blocks from Paradiso and it is ahh-maaazing. It is just an ordinary house in the middle of a suburb in a town that is really way too small to have suburbs. Closes 10 pm seven days a week. They make a bunch of different beers, pilseners, bitters, pale ale, doppelbock, porters, seasonal beer, stout, etc, etc. You can try it all in a small glass before you decide what to drink and you can also buy it in a two-liter plastic bottle to bring home. I ended up drinking bitter and a doppelbock, plus bringing a bottle of the seasonal hop flower lager home. In a puddle of which my new camera was swimming when I woke up early the next morning.