Cruising the Sands

[FF]

We sail mostly on the Waddenzee, tidal area, where you want a shallow draft boat. Our boat is a Woods designed Wizard, near perfect for these waters.http://forum.woodenboat.com/images/attach/jpg.gifoesters & wad 009.jpg2018-09-02 11.47.42.jpg2018-08-30 10.02.17.jpg2018-08-30 10.15.58.jpg
At high water we sail in a straight line across the plates, daggerboards and rudders a bit hoisted. We pass the lock that separates the freshwater lake with our marina and go straight to the island of Schiermonnikoog, drop anchor and wait till we touch ground. When its colder we wear boots, and have buckets with water ready to clean them. The scoops are handy to keep mud out of the cockpit. The big boat with a family on board has to stay in deeper waters, yet she draws only one meter. Frank
www.oarandsail.nl

[Mark0]

Did you solve the riddle ?

Cheers,
Mark

[mizzenman]

Cool Place.

must be nice to wander around and explore the seabed!

[Thad]

Thanks for posting!

[Ian McColgin]

Well played MarkO.

[Woxbox]

Nice.

[wtarzia]

Reminds me of the book, The Riddle of the Sands. -- Wade

[FF]

Ofcourse I borrowed a part of the title and I really like Erskine Childers book. I have also been in the replica of the 'Dulcibella' that played her part in the film.

[skuthorp]

I sail on similar 'waters' in a large shallow bay in south eastern Australia.

https://parkweb.vic.gov.au/explore/b...ts/westernport

[FF]

Very interesting, and I think in prehistoric times it would be among the best places for people to gather food yearround.

[len hornick]

Funny that this would come up As I am just now listening to Riddle.... for the umpteenth time on Livrivox..org
Very well read.
Pleasant to listen to a chapter or two in the evening ,
There are some very good sailing.nautical books read there.....
Cheers

[J.Madison]

This is such an interesting area. Can you post more pics of your cruises, so I can see if my imagination did it justice while reading the book?

[FF]

1812 kaart.jpg Guys, thanks for your comment, and I will continue this thread, which will be rambling, and contain a few rants, but the red thread will be The Sands and connected boats and places. The map shows where the first watery adventures happened and just remember white, and blue is deep water, green is dry, more or less. Ofcourse the sand shifts and that is a good reason according to my wife to buy a new map every year, while I think it does not matter because they are never up to date. While we want to have next time electronic maps, navigation is still carried out with a stick, just as Davies and Carruthers used. I came here first in the seventies and I can still hear a mariner to my girlfriend- to-be : 'Beter stay here, girl, for you wont see your mum again', when we were setting out in seakayaks. I short, those waters were not for amators was the general idea.

[FF]

This morning I counted with how many boats I had been here and stopped at 10: Several skutsjes, gaff rigged sloops with leeboards, bluff round bow and stern, socalled 'klippers', kayaks, a few bilgekeelers, and ofcourse Chilipepper, our catamaran, fast, shallow draft, seaworthy, and at the same time about as comfortable as the Kontiki. The cabin looks a bit like it.

[FF]

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We go often to the west when we have more then a few days, using wind and tide. The map shows the currents when high water is coming and as it streams around the islands it gradually loses speed till the currents meet at the 'inside' of the sea. There also the finest particles are dropping to the seabed so it is very muddy when it is eb. It is also the shallowest part of the sea and only at high water boats can pass it. Ergo, the strategy is so sail with rising water to the shallow part, called the 'Wantij', and then when eb starts to use the current to take you further. In this way all the boats travel and it means we sometimes have to get up while it is still dark, sail a couple of miles, and anchor to wait till it rises a bit more so we can negotiate the watershed. It also means the scenery is changing for the mass of water where you only meet the occasional seal has disappeared after a few hours, and thousands of birds come to gather food, cockles, worms, shrimps.
On the first picture we left Ameland together with a big Lemsteraak. They are often good sailors for they were used to bring fish from fishing boats to the market, and they also brought live eel to London where they still have a berth on the river.
On that leg we were sometimes running and then the Lemsteraak gained on us till we could luff a bit and could use the screecher. In the end he won thanks to our careless navigation. Most of the time we had to follow buoys.

[FF]

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While we were stuck on the sand a seal played nearby in the surf, and two fishermen came by to see what boat was stuck. They were cockle fishers and told us about all I know now about cockles. In former years big dredgers plowed the seabottom for cockles till the government stopped it. Now cockle fishing is back to the century old technique where a guy fishes by towing a dredge in shallow water. They said it was very hard work and one of them was a rugbyplayer so I believed them. We also learned that the 'Groene Strand', or the green beach where we were heading, had lots of cockles but they were only for private persons, not for them. The 'Green Men', biologists or conservationists had this decided. Later they brought us a bucket with cockles, that I used for 'Spaghetti alla Vongole'. (Everyone can pick a bucket of cockles or oysters a day)
When high water returned and this 'klipper' passed we weighed anchor and sailed to Terschelling that had been just out of reach. But I remember when, 30 years ago and I was out of tobacco and coffee, we had been stuck on a sandbank just outside the harbour as well. Glad I have given up smoking since.
We are drying out in #15 near the island of Terschelling. In the background a friend with his Kurt Hughes designed kat and the village West Terschelling with the lighthouse just visible behind the dune. It is our favorite stopover and at the waters edge is a nice pub where you can oversee the strand and the Waddenzee where boats enters the harbour. Often we stay there a week.

[FF]

023.jpg027.jpgP8120356.jpg
While we were stuck on the sand a seal played nearby in the surf, and two fishermen came by to see what boat was stuck. They were cockle fishers and told us about all I know now about cockles. I former years big dredgers plowed the seabottom for cockles till the government stopped it. Now cockle fishing is back to the technique wher a guy fishes by towing a dredge in shallow water. They said it was very hard work and one of them was a rugbyplayer so I believed them. We also learned that the 'Groene Strand', or the green beach where we were heading, had lots of cockles but they were only for private persons, not for them. The 'Green Men', biologists or conservationists had this decided. Later they brought us a bucket with cockles, that I used for 'Spaghetti alla Vongole'.

[skuthorp]

Very interesting, and I think in prehistoric times it would be among the best places for people to gather food yearround.

Western port bay was a supermarket. Food was available at any time of the year, shellfish, and sea weeed could just be picked up at low tide, you can still kick fish out of shallow tidal gutters. There are rock fireplaces built up on some of the banks, fish traps are still in evidence, and the amount of burnt shells and big middens tells of how long this had gone on. One midden is about 35 feet deep.
On land birds, wallabies and other small mammals and much edible roots and vegetation mode the Bay a meeting point for several tribal groups. 12000 years ago the bay was a big river valley before a big earthquake, it is still an active zone with the bay plate being pushed under a range of hills that border it. We have a small fault that runs up our valley a 100 m from the house. There are small tremors all the time.

[FF]

Skuthorp,I looked it up and I saw a strong similarity to the 'Gulf of the Morbihan' in Britanny. Also because you have 'French Island' in the middle. Places like the Waddenzee and your Western Bay are all to vulnerable for the big shipping and industry to comes with it, so we are glad its now Wold Heritage, but oil and gaz companies are still trying to get permission to drill or otherwise exploite the place. But a communal enemy has its advantages.

[Breakaway]

Lovely thread. Thanks so much for sharing.

Kevin

[cstevens]

Great thread. Looks like some seriously challenging water to navigate!

[FF]

Actually the waters are mostly quiet for the shoals and islands give good shelter, but the entrances between the islands are much wilder. When I crossed the Waddenzee from Lauwersoog to the Schiermonnikoog marina in my Cartopper I was first intimidated by the swell that entered from the Nortsea, particularly as I was running before the wind. I had to sit right in the middle of my boat and avoid a suddengybe, but then I could soon luu a bit and it was easy sailing to the island. I will try to find the mag with the article about it. I left the lock together with the saling barge of an aqaintance where I had spent the night and he wondered if the lockkeeper would try to stop me. He was also heading for the same island and I arrived much earlier as my draft was much less.

[John B]

Another thanks from me,very interesting to see the area.

[FF]

Kevin, John, Chris, Len, J, Madison, Dave, Ian, Thad, Ragnar and Mark, thanks for your reactions. I want to show the other boats that we sail as guests. Our oldest son is skipper on a barge with his fiancee, sometimes he skippers other boats. Especially in spring and fall when it gets colder we appreciate that as our cabin on the catamaran is a thin plywood affair, and they have central heating.061.jpg062.jpg064.jpg070.jpg066.jpg
This is the 'Klipper', a ketch with about 24 berth, a roomy cabin for the skipper and in the forepeak an comfortable cabin for the mate. The boat is built in 1892 as a cargo vessel for the big rivers in our country.
We could do as much as we wanted and these boats are sailed very actively. And that's me at the helm. I am 5' 9", to give you an idea about dimensions.

[amish rob]

Oh, I’m watching, too. I’m just too insanely jealous to trust myself to comment.

Carry on. More leeboards! Haha.

Peace,
Lee Boardman

[FF]

Rob, I think I am more daggerboard man. But I can change.

[FF]

I am away for a few days, will post again sunday I think

[FF]

IMG-20180414-WA0002.jpg
You may remember this boat from the thread 'Black Sails', where I told about the construction of a black gennaker for this boat. The skipper gave me the boat for a weekend with friends and next spring we will go for the fifth time. The last two years my son skippers the boat with his fiancee as mate. Every year the same formula: Gather at 5 fridaynight in Harlingen on the boat, buy food, visit a nearby boatyard, have a few beers while awailing dinner. Next motning we leave the harbour and head for Terschelling or Vlieland( see map). Possibly we let the boat dry out on a sandplate for a swim, gather cockles, mussels and oysters, or a walkie. Then we go to the island, walkie, dinner, sleep. Next day we go back to Harlingen. often with a detour , so to arrive around 4 in the afternoon. And go home by car or train.

[FF]

halfwinder+Frank.jpg Here the gennaker is trimmed beter. Jan Miedema, from Miedema Sails showed me how hoisting a gennaker to tight make it fuller. Giving the halyard some slack makes it flatter, which goes against the grain of the skipper. It took the crew a few yaers to learn to use the sail.

[FF]

WP_20150502_022.jpgWP_20150502_12_31_53_Pro.jpg The first year we had the son of a good friend with us and he is a professional cook. Going for a Michelin Star. When I do the cooking I always do grey peas with bacon, accompanied pickled stuff. About what they ate since Columbus. The veggies try to take over though.
And the weekend is early in the year so we try to benefit from the good weather.
Have to stop now, for we go to an Opera.

[Thad]

Great stuff! Thanks.

[FF]

Thanks Thad, have a few more things to show.

[cstevens]

Fantastic photo. I'm enjoying this thread very much!

[FF]

Thanks Chris

[FF]

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Bragpost. My son sent me these pics that a collegue took with his boat going to windward. The weatherforecast promised a 6-7 but it became a force 7-8. Two reefs in the main and a smaller jib. The 4e pic shows their track and the 3e the tack of another boat heading in the same direction. I asked him if he wanted a 'Jezus ' reef ( A third reef) and they are discussing it. It would safe us some worries.