Yachting Monthly – September 2019

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.