Weather watching and tough drills for Sea Stallion

by Henrik Kastoft on 15 Jul 2007 The Sea Stallion from Glendalough left the harbour at the Viking Ship Museum in Roskilde on July 1st. For six weeks the ship will carry out numerous trials in The North Sea, the Atlantic and The Irish Sea prior to the arrival at the Irish capital, Dublin.

The Sea Stallion from Glendalough is the World's largest reconstruction of a Viking Age warship.

Tonight a week ago the Sea Stallion sought out Båly Harbour just a few kilometres from the most southern part of Norway.

Since then it has rained heavily and the wind has been hard West – practically impossible for our ship and crew sailing towards the Orkney Islands.

But now the weather forecasts agree – there’s a shift in the weather because of a low pressure above Ireland. The low pressure is headed for Scandinavia, deep and filled with wind, but the challenge for the Sea Stallion is to reach the nothern parts of Scotland. Before the low pressure there’s headwind, therefore the Sea Stallion is sailing south west to catch a good wind as early as possible. The wind in the low presure is turning against the clock and by taking advantage of this turn, the Sea Stallion can head north west in the middle of the North Sea and sail towards the northern parts of Scotland and Orkney.

We are sitting in the mess on the following ship 'Cable One,’ when skipper, his steersman and skipper on 'Cable One’ are making plans for the for the up-coming days of sailing across the North Sea: 'If you sail today (wednesday, red.), how much further south on the North Sea reached compared to sailing tomorrow?' Lars skipper on 'Cable One’ ask.

'I think we would save ourselves a lot of trouble by sailing tomorrow. We are headed for 'Ekkofisk’ (an oil drilling field) and there is no reason for sailing all the way out there', skipper Carsten answers.

'Its all about using the sail. There’s no reason to sail to far south. The low pressure isn’t there before Saturday, giving you some good sailing wind. The less wet, the better', Lars agrees. The two skippers points out the position of the Sea Stallion, if the ship sail out tis afternoon compared to tomorrow. And with a strong head wind, the difference is not that big. 'Saturday the wind will turn south and then we have to be there to catch it,' Carsten says.

'You have to prepare for yourselves for at bit of rain from that low pressure,' Lars says.

The predictions from the meterologist are until Saturday.

'That’s perfect. Then we will have a great tale wind And then there’s nothing we can’t handle,' Carstens says. Boat builder and head of boat yard Søren comments: 'Try looking a the weather map again, lets see the development... it looks fine. 20 knots north west. If we can loosen the sheets and not torture the ship and get to wet ourselves. Friday the wind decreases' Søren says, while everybody are lookin at the screen.

'But there’s another low pressure midday Friday it will be head wind. But if we are down here, we can tack north. Friday evening it’s 7-8 m/s and from there it gets better and better. What a great map.' Carsten says when the animation reaches the weather forecast forthis weekend – all the arrows showing the wind direction are pointing more and more east.

'And it gets even better. The wind increases to 12 m/s. That’s perfect. Saturday will have tale wind. But we can’t lay here waiting for it to disappear by itself. Then we are in trouble, when tacking towards Kirkwall – then the wind will be head wind. This is were a helicopter from BBC is waiting for us'.

'How fast can you sail wit a half wind a 10 m/s?' Lars aks. 'F... fast! 6-7 knots in average,' Carsten and Søren answers.

Vibeke, the second steermans comments: 'But we can’t torture the ship. The most important thing is to keep and average speed'. 'And the low pressure will make you really wet,' Lars from ’Cable One’ says.

'If people are soaked we can stay close to the Scottish east coast and head for Wick for example. But when does it all stop?' Søren ask.

'We sail tomorrow morning. Boat has to be ready at seven' Carsten concludes. 'Then there’s a good low pressure for you to take advantage off', Lars comments. 'We have to tell the crew members to get a good night sleep.It is going to be tough'.

'No film tonight!…' Carsten laughs. 'Straight to bed after supper,' Lars smiles.

Tough rescue drill for crew members.

If the weather forecast holds the Sea Stallions long journey across the North Sea will begin Thursday. Two days before time are spend training rescue drills from the following ship ’Cable One’.

One o’clock the following ship sailed from Båly harbour – on board were twenty-five crew members dressed in rescue suits. These suits are waterproof and used by the crew on board the Sea Stallion during high seas. With the suit on, a person overboard can survive for several hours.

Todays drill concentrated on the rescue procedures linked to the following ship – if case of shipwreck, ’Cable One’ trained picking up crew members on open sea.

Three to four crew members teamed up and jumped overboard from the aft of ’Cable One’. When the last one hit water, the following ship placed itself a few hundred metres from the crew and to rubber dinghies was lowered down to pick them up.

At ’Cable One’ the crew members jumped into a net and crawled, by using a rope in the basket, towards the deck they just left.

In all the drill took 15-20 minutes and then all crew members were safely back on ’Cable One’. And the mood amongst the crew members quickly improved even more when the cook from ’Cable One’ served coffee and freshly baked cake.

North Sea Wind not right

The right wind to cross the North Sea is still not there. The mast was placed down early morning to adjust the wind station and the wheel in the top of the mast.

The crew then carried out four test sails of ten minutes each, rowing. With the mast down the crew rowed on all sixty oars and then with only every second oar. The distance reached was basically the same; 0,33 og 0,34 nautical miles against the wind (10 m/s.).

Mast and rig are taking our speed. Rowing on all oars or just every second oar made no bigger difference. The reason is the lack of space on board. It's very difficult to really get a long stroke when rowing, when all sixty oars are used.

'There's no doubt - it really is more reasonable to only use every second oar', Skipper Carsten Hvid concludes.

The next test showed that mast and rig steels a lot of wind. 0,19 sømil was reached in ten minutes rowing with the mast raised. Mast and rig stole almost a third of the wind when rowing against it.

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