Yachting Monthly – September 2019

(Sean Pound) #1
Julian Mustoe fi nally cruises to the
Norwegian medieval city following
his disastrous earlier trip

YOURCRUISING


STORIES


 W


hen approached from
seaward, the coast of
the central part of
Norway, known as
Fjordland, appears
to be a continuous line of small, irregular
mountains. It was August and I had just
motor-sailed my Hunter Horizon 26,
Zephyrus 200 miles across the North Sea
in calm weather, and arrived five miles off
the Norwegian coast at dusk. All seemed to
be in order, but in a spirit of caution I stood
off at sea all night. At dawn I could see that
my GPS position was correct and that
Korsfjord stood before me. I motored in and
picked up a mooring in a tiny cove, Limavåg,
on the southeast side of the island of Sotra.
After a sound sleep I awoke in the beautiful
land of Norway, to sunlight pouring in
through the cabin windows.
The passage from Lerwick in the Shetland
Islands had been a very different affair from
my attempt two years before. Then I had

encountered an unexpected gale, steering
failure, rescue by the Norwegian Coastguard
and a catastrophic towing accident, which
saw the loss of my 25ft Petersen-designed
Harrier of Down. I have previously written
about this incident for Yachting Monthly’s
Learning Curve series and now don’t sail
without a back-up steering arrangement
(‘How self steering could have saved my
yacht’. YM, Summer 2015).
I was now 20 miles south of Bergen,
and in the intricate waters that lie inside the
chain of islands, skerries and rocks, known
as the skærgård, that shelters most of the
west Norwegian coast. It is said that in
ancient times the gods and the giants
were, as usual, in dispute and that their
fight took the form of hurling island-sized
rocks at one another. The skærgård is the
aftermath of their battle.
The city of Bergen was the third
destination, after King’s Lynn in Norfolk,
and Lerwick in the Shetland Islands, of my

Hanseatic voyage. The Hanseatic League,
or Hanse, was in the late Middle Ages, a
maritime coalition of Baltic and Low Country
cities, which banded together for the
purposes of fostering trade, combating
piracy and coping with troublesome princes
and kings ashore. The memory and
inheritance of the Hanse are to be found
around the shores of the Baltic Sea and in
many parts of northern Europe to this day.

BEWARE THE KRAKEN
The mariner who nowadays approaches the
west coast of Norway should realise that he
is sailing into the home waters of the
legendary sea monster, the Kraken. Erik
Pontoppidan, Lutheran bishop of Bergen in
the mid-18th Century, wrote of the Kraken:
‘The largest Sea-monster in the world; it is
called Kraken ..... That word being applied by
way of eminence of this creature ..... Which is
round, flat and full of arms, or branches,
which they [other writers] say of its towers of

To Bergen


at last


Ju

lia

(^) n
Mo
sto
e
CRUISING LOG
Julian lives permanently
on his Hunter Horizon
26, Zephyrus
Mooring in Vågen puts
you in the heart of the city
Julian left from Lerwick in
the Shetland Islands, the second
port in his Hanseatic voyage
Julian Mustoe completed a
10-year solo circumnavigation
in 2012, which he wrote about
in his book Voyage of the
Harrier. He now owns Zephyrus.

Free download pdf