TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

We sailed DOVE around Orust Island last week , about 60nm, heading south from Ellos, Gasthamn winding our way through a twisiting narrow channel in the low rocky off-lying islands called the skaergard that cover the SW Swedish coastline. Navigation was challenging enough to require two of us, one staring into the digital chartplotter, zooming in and out and ahead, checking with the other at the helm who tried to follow position holding the Swedish paper chart while steering. We brought some black and white copies of the current NIMA charts of the area but that was a waste of money for coastal sailing here as you need color and large scale wherever possible to pick your way among the islands, nav markers and rocks.

We emerged into the open Skagerrack south of Karingon Island in light SW winds and finally raised both sails and turned the motor off sailing south and east to the entrance to the Stigfjorden south of Orust. We dropped sail for the tight entrance channel but once trhough rolled out the jib and had a wonderful run in a building SW wind east to the passage between Orust and Mjorn Island before rolling up the jib and motoring to concentrate on navigation. After sailing a gaff-riggegd schooner the past couple of years I am having a love affair with jib roller furling. You can turn on the sail power as fast as a motor and sail as fast as you can motor and turn off the sail power as fast as you can turn off an engine (almost). I can’t go back.

The wind followed us around the entire island and we were able to sail at 4 to 5 knots in the strong following wind with just our jib out all the way to Ljungskile where we found a sheltered anchorage behind Ulvon Island. The rain and Force 6 to 7 winds the next day kept us at anchor all day, me watching the boat for signs of anchor drag and experimenting with scope length and stern anchor placement to minimize sailing back and forth. For you anchoring nuts out there (Jim!) we have ~80’ of 5/16 chain shackled to the 35lb Delta anchor (our primary) and 240’ of 5/8ths 8 strand nylon rope spliced to the chain. Depths are shallow here and tidal range less than a couple feet. Wind stopped by late afternoon so we dinghied to shore and hiked around little Ulvon Island which is a little summer resort that is foot access only via a little bridge. The east side of Orust reminds us of sailing in the San Juans of Washington and the Gulf Islands of BC. So if you have been there then you don’t have to come sail this part of Sweden!

Thursday was more wind and rain so we thought we would just stay put but then the wind shifted 180 degrees making our anchorage uncomfortable so we weighed anchor and were away north again continuing our counterclockwise circumnavigation of Orust sailing under jib alone 5-6 kts in 20 kts of S wind until we turned SW from Havstens fjord and entered another tight channel under our second bridge of the trip (I am now very careful since nearly hitting the Skafto Island bridge!).

We thought we might anchor somewhere but there was nowhere to go since all good anchorages have marinas boat yards or private moorings so we decided to just head back to Ellos to see if we could get a few small repairs made to the boat at HR Friday. In this short stretch of water along the N coast of Orust you pass four of the world’s best boat builders: Vindo, Najad, Malo, and our first choice, Hallberg Rassy.  Why are the best boats in the world all coming from one island?

It rained hard on us our last hour or two but we were happy to dock in the HR Marina again, a friendly familiar place to us now when everything else feels unknown and far from home.