Yachting Monthly – September 2019

floating islands as they appeared then to

be... Its back or upper part, which takes in

appearance about an English mile and a half

in circumference and looks like a number of

small islands. At least several bright points or

horns appear, which given the height they

rise above the surface of the water, and

sometimes they stand up as high and large

as the mast of a middle-sized vessel. It

seems that these are the creature’s arms,

and, if they were to lay hold of the largest

man of war, they would pull it to the bottom.’

Some say that the breathing of the Kraken

causes the rise and fall of the ocean tides.

I resolved to take advantage of the

Kraken’s respiration. On a fine summer

morning I drifted out of Limavåg and turned

to port. With the flood tide under me, I sailed

north through Raunafjord and Byfjord before

arriving at Bergen in the afternoon. I had

made a swift passage, thanks to the Kraken.

The historic city of Bergen is situated around

Vågen on the mainland of Norway and

sheltered from the North Sea by the island of

Askøy. I sailed Zephyrus into Vågen and

moored alongside in the very centre

of the city. A short distance across the

harbour was a group of medieval

timber buildings constructed on the

waterside by the merchants of

the Hanseatic League.

The Bergen kontor was a

trading colony, comparable to

the European treaty ports on

the coast of China in the 19th

and early 20th Centuries. The

Hanseatic merchants, who lived

in the kontor, enjoyed monopoly

rights. They imported grain,

textiles, wine and manufactured

goods to Bergen from the south.

With the profits they bought and exported

dried and salted fish to Europe. In those

days preserved fish was a major article of

trade because the Catholic church insisted

quite strictly that only fish, and not meat, be

eaten on a Friday or a feast day. At the

height of its trading prosperity, the kontor

occupied some five hectares of central

land in medieval Bergen, a city which at that

time had fewer than 7,000 inhabitants.

Today the Hanseatic buildings are devoted

to tourism rather than trade.

After three days in Bergen I departed

south through the islands on my way to

Denmark and the Baltic Sea. There are many

hundreds of miles of sheltered water with

countless snug anchorages and scenic

towns behind and between the islands of

the Norwegian skærgård. These waters

were the nursery of the Vikings, the highway

of the Hanseatic merchants and are arteries

of the modern Norwegian economy. They

are also a hospitable and inexhaustible

Ju resource for the cruising yachtsman.

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CRUISING LOG

The old town in Bergen is

famed for its painted houses

Bergen’s sheltered harbour

is steeped in trade history

According to Norse sagas, the Krakan

lived off the coasts of Norway and

Greenland and terrorised sailors

NORWAY

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Raunefjorden

Limavåg

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(^) Vågen
Bergen
Ask Holsn
0 5nm
Lerwick
Bergen
Oslo
Wick
SCOTLAND DENMARK
NORWAY
Shetland Is.N
ort
h (^) S
ea
0 100nm