A sailor’s discount and a sail-through movie!

Aeroscobing to Svenborg

26th to 28th August 2017

We left Aeroscobing at 1025 to avoid being caught up in the ferry’s approach to the harbour. These things may be small but they don’t half shift and produce a huge bow wave that can swamp you. The channel out to the north from Aeroscobing is quite narrow so we were pleased to have timed our exit to avoided them!

Best to keep out of the ferries way!

Once past the safe water mark we set a bearing of 015, the wind was so light that we motorsailed on a run with the genoa giving us about 0.5 knots of speed. No much help but it felt better than just motoring like most of the other boats out there! After about 3 nm we were in the approach to Svenborg. The channel is dredged to about 3m and passes between the small islands of Drejo and Skaro to port and Hjorto and the rather bigger island of Tasinge to starboard. Tasinge is about 3.5 nm long with a Cardinal buoy at the end where you need to make a sharp turn to the north before passing another Cardinal buoy in 0.5 nm, making an immediate turn onto 050 to bring you into the Svenborg Sund. The Sund needs to be steered accurately as just before the motorway bridge crossing there are some tricking narrows marked by cardinals through which the channel snakes. Of course it is here, at the narrowest point that we meet the ferry and get thrown about a bit as it steams by us!

The narrows at the motorway bridge

Of the three or four marinas around Svenborg we went for the one right in the centre of town in the new port (1884 new!) as it sounded the most interesting! This involved sailing round between a large ship repair yard where they were working on some wooden sailing ships and a minesweeper and the large grain silos. It did not look particularly attractive but once past the commercial buildings there was a modern marina with nice pontoons and by 1340 we were moored up along side. This was the first time we were not in a box mooring since Wangerooge on the Frisian islands. All our fenders and mooring lines had to be changed and being out of practice We needed several goes to get Grace in close enough…….We really have become quite continental in our mooring habits!

Svenborg

Approach to the marina

Grace safely moored alongside

Svenborg

Being so early in the day there was time to explore! In the tourist office it claimed that Svenborg was the shopping capital of Fyn with ‘exciting and individual boutique shops’ , unfortunately for us it was 2.00pm on a Saturday afternoon and they were all closed! The only exception was a Kwickly Supermarket where I made the biggest improvement to my life onboard Grace, a 99 Kr electric toaster! The hateful, costly and completely useless gas ring toaster can now go over the side! I bought it in Chichester and it has never worked, only managing to cremate the edges while leaving the centre of the bread raw!

Out with old and in with the new!

Proper toast!

The next day, while waiting for Denmark’s yachting museum to open we have an excellent deconstructed Danish apple cake at the ferry terminal in the old port (1642 old!).

Waiting for the yacht museum to open

The museum itself is an almost completely random collection of old boats and their bits in a big dusty old shed. It is almost like visiting a jumble sale! It is absolutely fantastic and I have a great time as we are the only visitors! They have a display and exhibition on the history of the Folkboat, a boat I have always wanted and liked. In fact they have the original boat on display that was used as the mould for all Scandinavian GRP boats. This includes a duff finish to one of the planks at the stern and is apparently a feature in all glass fibre boats! They have Kaiser Wilhelm’s steam launch, a colourful collection of old outboard motors and a tiny boat in which a Dane sailed around the world. Fittingly, we also got a discount on the museum’s entrance fees as we had sailed there!

Denmark’s yachting museum

Folkboats

A feature of every Scandinavian GRP boat

The Kaiser’s steam launch

Outboard motors!

In the evening we go to an open air ‘sail through movie on the dock. It is about Jacque Cousteau and is in French dubbed into Danish and is all very confusing!

Sail-thro movie

Tomorrow we set sail for Nyborg and the Great Belt!