Swedish sailing: exploring the archipelagos on a classic Norlin 34

My first real memories were formed when I was a nine-year-old boy on a boat.

In 1993, my mom and dad, Gail and Dennis, took me and my little sister, Katie, out of school for a year.

Together with two cats, Ketchie and Salty, we lived aboard our 36ft Allied Princess ketch Sojourner, cruising the US East Coast and spending the winter in the Bahamas.

I was in 4th grade, my sister in 2nd, our parents taught us at home in between adventures.

I remember building a little cardboard house on the shelf in the cabin where I slept for our cat Salty, who hated him despite my efforts.

I remember how Salty rode in the bow of the Sojourner as we crossed the Gulf Stream, went out to the Bahamas, sitting on an inflated boat and balancing with the grace that only a cat can have on a boat.

At the first Bahamian anchorage at Chubb Cay, my mother and I were snorkeling over a shallow reef, and I held her hand because I was afraid to touch the coral, and saw the spotted eagle rays swimming under the boat.

I woke up at four in the morning in Nassau on Boxing Day and sat in the back seat of an old bus with torn brown vinyl seats to go watch the pre-dawn celebrations of the Junkanoo Carnival.

I have memories of spearfishing with my dad when we were towing the boat behind us while we were swimming and I was pointing out a large sea bass hiding in coral heads because he couldn't see without glasses.

Then he dived and pierced them with a simple Bahamian pole-spear, nothing more than a pointed fiberglass rod with an elastic band.

And I remember my friends at a landlocked school in Pennsylvania asking us what it would be like to live on a cruise ship for nine months when their idea of a “cruise” is very different from our reality.

These memories are a fundamental part of me and the reason why I chose to pursue a career in the particular kind of adventure sailing that we have been doing since we started at latitude 59 ° N.

I'm just a big kid trying to keep more memories that made me who I am.

Family business

On March 8, 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to make headlines across the Western world, my wife Mia gave birth to our son Axel.

He arrived nine weeks ahead of schedule, and we spent the next two months with him in the intensive care unit of the University Hospital in Uppsala, about 40 minutes from our farmhouse in Sweden.

The initially healthy Axel suffered a severe infection that escalated into meningitis and had to undergo two brain surgeries in a matter of weeks when he weighed just 4 pounds.

At the same time, the COVID-19 crisis has disrupted our sailing schedule.

Unbeknownst to all the crew members who signed up to sail with us in 2020, I worked from the hospital room while Axel lay in his tiny bed, connected to machines and monitors, and Mia was by his side.

I made the difficult decision to postpone the entire sailing season until 2021 and with the help of some very brave and determined friends, I managed to send both boats from the Caribbean to our home port of Annapolis before the hurricane season.

Unlike me, Mia didn't grow up on boats.

She is from the landlocked countryside and although she has competed in swimming in the past and felt comfortable in the water, she never spent meaningful time in it.

That all changed when we met while traveling New Zealand in 2006.

Mia's first sailing experience was with me and three other friends in the Marlborough Sounds on the South Island, where we hired a small 28-foot yacht and spent five days at anchorage, jumping and falling in love.

I returned home to the Chesapeake, where I was working as a sailor on a 74-foot schooner.

Mia and I became a devoted couple after spending only six weeks together in New Zealand, and soon she joined me in the US.

After spending the entire summer aboard my parents' last Sojourner, by then the 38-foot sloop Wauquiez, we decided it was time to buy our own boat, and in 2008 we became the proud owners of Arcturus, a 1966 Allied Seabreeze 35-foot yacht built by that the same company.

The Albany, NY company released the original Sojourner that I spent that formative year in the Bahamas on.

Development

Mia grew up as a sailor, went to sea with me and got dirty on the repair of Arcturus.

In 2011, two weeks after we got married in Sweden, we flew back to the United States and sailed across the Atlantic in Arcturus on our first big ocean crossing, sailing north from the Chesapeake and down the highway to Ireland through Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

My parents joined us on a voyage from Newport, Rhode Island to Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

This was my mother's last voyage.

She died nine months later. She was only 62 years old, but she left us the inspiration to hold on to her dreams.

"Never for money, always for love." David Byrne of Talking Heads wrote this line and it became my mantra.

By 2015, we had already launched at 59 ° N with my dream boat, the 1972 Swan 48, called Isbjorn, with the goal of fulfilling two of my parents' most important precepts.

From mom: “Do what you love and the money will come” and from dad: “Whatever you do, be the best, and you will always be in demand”.

Both are powerful on their own, but when combined, they will make you unstoppable.

Docking at the 2015 Caribbean Rally 1500, where Mia and I were leading the event, we watched Isbjorn emerge from her slip, my father aboard as co-skipper with a full crew of adventure-hungry sailors ready to point the bow yachts to the south.  

Mia and I were left behind in charge of coastal support for the rally.

Never again, I thought with a heavy heart. I had to lead people from the deck, not from the dock.

Since then, Mia and I have sailed nearly 40,000 miles on Isbjorn, crossing the Atlantic twice and sailing from the south of Grenada to 80 ° N in Svalbard.

In 2019, we expanded our fleet and bought Icebear, our Swan 59, to share the wisdom of the high seas with more crews every year and enable a handful of sailors like us to make a living by delivering these experiences.

So far, despite COVID, the mission has been completed.

We rush to Spica

However, I can't help looking through the boat listings.

As our business grew, so did the size of our yachts.

But I always wanted to go back to my roots and find a small, simple boat that we could sail with the whole family here in the Swedish archipelago, but it could also take us to distant shores if we so desired.

As Axel grew stronger every day, the 1977 Norlin 34 "Special" caught my eye.

The designs of Swedish architect Peter Norlin have always stood out for their clean lines, pleasing shapes and the iconic “N” inscribed on their bows.

The 34 has become something of a legend in Sweden thanks to its victories in the offshore Gotland Runt in the Baltic and strong finishes in Fastnet and other classic offshore races from the 1970s IOR era.

This particular 34 was unique: it was one of a kind, built according to the standard 34 hull, but with a sleek nose, a racing cockpit layout, and some interior changes specifically designed for the 1977 Gotland Runt.

It was a purebred offshore yacht, built in an era when racing boats still had warm interiors and were also intended for fun family cruises.

After meeting with a loving hostess and agreeing on a deal, we bought her. I didn't have to look at any other boats.

There is an old proverb for identifying stars used in astronomical navigation: "Follow the arc to Arcturus, then race to Spica!"

Find the constellation Ursa Major, then trace the curve of the bucket handle and continue through the dark space until you reach a bright star.

This is Arcturus.

Continue moving from Arcturus across the sky in the same direction, and the next bright star you come to will be Spica.

Both stars are part of a canon of 57 stars used in astronomical navigation.

Without much debate, we connected the dots from our first boat, Arcturus, to our new Norlin 34 and named it Spica.

And almost immediately went sailing.

We carried Axel in his car seat along the long floating dock, filled the reservoir with water and hit the road, heading for the countless islands that make up the impressive Stockholm archipelago.

Spica is a refreshingly simple boat; one battery powers the tiny refrigerator and cockpit lighting, the other starts the engine, and one 50W solar panel on the aft support charges both of them.

No electronics (not even a fish finder), no pressurized water, no autopilot, no chartplotter, no shower, no frills.

As in the early days of my work at Saujourner, we spent time sailing and exploring rather than repairing and maintaining.

I was in my element, laying tacks and turns through the maze of islands, rocks and skerries, as we went out into the Baltic.

Axel settled comfortably in his car seat on the sole of the cockpit. Mia watched him with one eye and the paper map with the other as we charted a course through the islands.

Last year we were accustomed to sailing 8,000 miles in our Swan 59, maneuvering its 30-ton body between fully-crewed boats at anchor.

It was an absolute joy to drive the 6 ton Spica alone.

Everything was so easy! It's hard to imagine that Mia and I had ever complained about the mainsail flaking on Arcturus when it seemed like a big boat to us.

We bought a Spica in the north, outside the coastal borders of the Stockholm archipelago.

Thus, our summer voyage had a goal: to return the yacht to our native waters, to re-discover the place that we loved on Arcturus, and, ultimately, to bring Spica to the winter anchorage site before we return to the fleet of 59 ° north latitude. in Annapolis.

We were lucky that the weather was good during the transition to the south, but all the way passed with a favorable wind.

Peter Norlin described his design philosophy as "clean lines, clean sailing" and the Spica handled the sidewind well despite its old, tired sails.

The steering was light, with full sail, and in the wind I could lock the rudder and let it steer on its own while I was on my guard.

Day after day we walked as many miles as we saw fit, but always with the aim of getting closer to home.

At night we anchored in the Swedish style, tied with our nose to a pine tree in the rocks, and took out the stern anchor.

Our only overnight stay at the marina was in Sandhamn, a sailing center on the east coast of Sweden, a delightful and lively island at normal times but quiet and calm last summer thanks to COVID.

Mia and I slept in sleeping bags in the large aft quarter, while Axel had his little sleeping bag tucked into the nest we made for him on the starboard pilot's bunk.

Since childhood, I have always slept better on the boat.

Mia was even more delighted with the new boat than I was, and she was not at all embarrassed to take Axel.

After living with him in the hospital for eight weeks and seeing how hardy he was, it was relatively easy to take him sailing with you.

We ended up sailing a couple hundred miles last summer, just Axel, Mia and me, before taking Spica out for the long Swedish winter.

This perfectly prepared us for the future as a sailing family.

I hope that Axel, when he is old enough, can join me or Mia on Isbjorn or Iceberg as an assistant, and we can cross the oceans together.

But that day is still far away, and I don't want to just wait for it to come before we take it sailing.

If my mother taught me anything, it is that tomorrow does not belong to anyone. Life is meant to be lived, but you have to live it actively.

On the one hand, we bought Spica at the most inopportune moment, in the midst of a global pandemic and right after the birth of a premature baby.

There is nothing definite in our life anymore.

But from our point of view, we bought the Spica at the perfect time.

We bought a boat for ourselves, and we bought it for Axel, and the lessons my mom taught us were our focus.

In an age of uncertainty, if you take care of the present, the future will take care of itself.

08.06.2021