The Onshore work is done

Badger is now ready for launch at 0930 tomorrow. I just have to put the tricolour and aerial on the mast. We've tested the engine - it works. We've AF ed a couple of patches on the hull and ad a healthy salad lunch. The alternative was korv Stroganoff where the korv is a sort of pink spam. Starnholm is full of Christians, some of whom made a racket at midnight possibly drunk and certainly merry. We will be sleeping on the boat tomorrow and putting on boom sails etc.

A Good Day for Weather and work

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We began with a pleasant breakfast at Stiftsgarden with meusli and fil followed by bacon and egg with a little herring as a side dish.

Kristin was coughing badly at breakfast but is sufficiently improved to have washed the boat and removed stains from the whole above water hull. ~We then tried to apply a waterline stripe but failed utterly to get it to stick down smoothly in the place we wanted it to be. The result was frustration and we abandoned the idea.

In the mean time I’d been working on the under kitchen Blakes seacock which had stuck. It’s almost impossible to get at the locknuts keeping the securing bolts tight but I did get there in a very uncomfortable position and a curse or two.

I then sampled the fuel tank finding a little water and some rather cloudy fuel at the bottom but less than half a litre so I’ll just add more anti bug treatment. The prefilter looks fine. The use of FAME in diesel fuel makes this problem endemic nowadays. Another  routine job was to change the gearbox lubricant which would have been easier with the boat upside down. I’m no longer happy to work doubled up. There’s too much of me in the way.

I did more work on the mast and had a tug at the aerial lead wire finding it surprisingly easy to move. Now the yard had damaged the aerial making it pretty ineffective a year ago so I needed to fit a new aerial but had been frightened of the risks of changing the aerial lead up the mast. It is very easy to break the cable or the auxiliary string.

Anyway, finding the lead movable I cut the old lead off at the base of the mast, spliced it to a piece of thin cordage and pulled the old cable out of the top of the mast followed by all the spare cordage as Alan Burwin had once told me so as to have a remedy later in case of accident. I then attached the new aerial lead to the cordage and started pulling it down the mast. This proved difficult. The problem was excessive friction at the top of the mast caused by bending the new lead on entry. It proved beneficial to prefeed the new cable in through the hole at the top of the mast. Even so it was hard work and became impossible when I started to pull the old cable back down the mast with the new one. The extra cordage length was insufficient. I cut off the cordage and resumed pulling only to find the new lead was fouled on other cables inside the mast at the exit hole. I managed to clear this by the high tech method of prodding with a pair of scissors and the aerial lead then emerged. We then had to push and feed the next 15 metres of cable through the mast to get the full length needed to reach the VHF radio. We were very relieved to get that far. In addition Totta has accepted my plea for a later launch on Friday so we can have breakfast at the hotel and leave in time to attend the launch at 9:30 a.m.

We are having a rest now and then going out for more Suchi for supper.

More work on Badger

Progress a bit slow today as Kristin unable to do much. The antibiotics are beginning to work and she is coughing less. I've finished installing the liferaft cradle and it seems firmly fixed - which is distinctly important! I've also checked and reset the raw water pump impeller and checked over the seacocks. One really needs re-greasing. Jet and Totta have got the mast out and I've started preparing it for repacing on the boat on Friday. We went to lunch at the Pud School as usual but were waylaid by Anka, one of the teachers there, and invited to a full service two course lunch which was an examination for the students concerned - quite a compliment really and we were very scruffy from boat work. The food was good - rather nice mango drink with crushed ice then flat fish with wine sauce and asparagus ( all good) and carrot puree ( rather over spiced and almost too runny to eat with a fork. This was followed by rhubarb pie ( too sweet with marshmallow foam on top) or rhubarb icecream with crunchy biscuit and strwberry coule ( all good). Time is running out for work on shore before launch.

Work has started on Badger

Breakfast at the Slott was good with meusli and sour milk ( fil) - we do miss it at home. We spent much of the time getting kit from the car into Badger. Since Badger's deck is about 3 metres above he ground this requires climbing and hauling on ropes. Once the kit is on board it has to be stowed by Kristin who is feeling pretty grotty and has got Bronchitis. We went to the "Vard Centrale" and Kristin got to see a doctor and was prescribed antibiotics. We almost missed our lunch at the Pud School but managed to get some salad and greetings from old friends among the staff on the lines of "It must be summer". In fact is was raining but warm and muggy. We were also greetecd by the yard crew of Jet and Totta.
Ive adjsted the pitch on the propellor, removed the old life raft cradle and started installing the new one and also fitted the new Rocna anchor. We quit around 5.30 pm. and found our way to Kohiro for suchi. IT was even better than we remembered it and we were thoroughly welcomed by the owner and his wife and given free coffee and a sweet.
We are now back in the slott and resting ready for more work tomorrow. The launch is to be at 7.00 on Friday so we have just 3 days work left - its a bit daunting.

Arrived Nykoping

From Oyten we had an easy run to Lubeck, even the Hamburg ring was innocuous although there was a little sting in the tail with 3 lanes going down to 2 where a sort of tent hanging from an overhead bridge on the closed lane. There were sounds of drilling - very mysterious. This happened twice.
Finding our hotel Alte Stadtmauer requires us to defeat the Tomtom and remember what we did a year ago. We made it with only one small loop round but had to park in the only possible spot - the middle of the road to unload kit and get the key to the carpark. By the time Ireturned a large lorry was just behind!
Once sorted, Kristin wnet to bed with her cold while I had a wander. We lunched in an upsteirs cafe by the Townhall - very romantic and with great ceilings. After that the pattern repeated and I renewed acquaintance. One novelty I enjoyed was seeing a man with bright yellow elbow crutches which were fitted with red reflectors - a good safety aid.
We followed Amanda's advice for a light supper by going to a somewhat scruffy Italian restaurant halfway up one of the city's defensive round towers. The decor seemed to be from a battered night club but the mixed antipasti and the pizzas were excellent as was the wine.
On the Saturday we moved out of Lubeck to Travemunde but found it very crowded, sunny and not very interesting so moved off the Timmendorfer Strand which was terrible for the car borne. We ended up at a bird zoo in a swamp which gave very pleasant entertainment. I had planned to Take Kristin to Buddenbrooks as a prebirthday treat but she wasnt fit enough for the struggle so we suppered fwirly simply and then had a very long wait till sailing time at 0030 on Sunday. I was ver relieved to find it was possible to get to a looo in Travemunde Scaninavienkai as otherwise the wait might have been painful. The port deals mainly with freight lorrise and we were packed in with them slowly so it was midnight before we got to bed.
Monday
We got off the boat a little before 10 am - it is interesting to see enormous lorries steering down very tight holes but also anxiety inducing.
The three hundred mile journey to Nykoping was tiring and boring but not difficult with both Kristin and Itaking hourly stints at the wheel.
We are at Stjarnholm Slott till Friday morning when the boat will be launched. The slott is a stately home run in part as a hotel or more a B&B with extensive grounds, a sculpture park etc. We have a room in the attic with a two metre high porclain stove in one corner.

Thursday 15th May at Oyten

Hazards for the pedestrian in Amsterdam
We found ourselves continually at risk in Amsterdam while on the street. The typical Amsterdam road is complex. It may have two tram tracks down the middle - the nearer one has trams going to the right. Outside the tram tracks on either side is a single lane for ordinary vehicles - but taxis, police cars and the like also use the tram tracks. Outside the road lane is a cycle track on each side which may have cyclists going either way. Outside these are the pavements, also used by cyclists but mainly used as dumping grounds for household rubbish, gardens and, above all, bicycles in their thousands. The only reasonable place to walk is on the cycle path where you get shouted at. In canal streets where the canal replaces the tram life is  littlle more complicated as any car that cannot get down the street the right way, reverses back the wrong way at considerable speed so that it  is not trapped. Here the pavement is further obstructed by house entry steps, tables and chairs, the occasional sofa and advertising stands. The speed hump smake for an extra trip-hazard and of course the cyclist in either direction is probably texting with one hand at least.  Cyclists also cut corners at intersections using the pavements and weaving between the poor pedestrians.
Luckily it is possible to buy Belgian beer to reduce the pain and fear to reasonable proportions.

On the road Again
We left Amsterdam early today to drive to Oyten near Bremen, a matter of 230 miles. The Amsterdam rush hour was perfectly reasonable and the Dutch motorways quitr OK but, as always the German A1 was being reconstructed and down from 3 lanes to one in two places with tail backs of about 6 kilometres -very slow and stressful. We arrived in Oyten to found our little hotel had lost our booing but had a room for us anyway and a pleasant one at that. So we have settled down each with a rather boring Becks beer to snooze till supper. The weather has improved and it is sunny outside to our considerable pleasure.

Amsterdam 14th May

Kristin has pointed out that we found many more Van Goch paintings on show at Kroller Muller Museum than we had ever seen before and she had been told many of the paintings had recently been "returned" to KM. This might explain our previous memory of many Van Goch paintings in the Van Goch museum on our 1976 visit and disappointment this May. Certainly the KM has many more of the spectacular late period paintings than the Van Goch museum has on show. It is of course possible that many more of the Van Goch museum's paintings are undergoing restoration or are visiting other shows. At present the Van Goch museum is fairly poor value.
The Van Goch museum has a large building site beside it with a new entrance building under construction with a large hole beside it. I have no idea why it should need a new entrance building unless it means to provide under-cover queuing.
On the building sites is a large vertical cylinder about 10 metres by 1.5 metres. From a pipe at the top issues a large amount of fog  all the time. An official said this was nitrogen so my guess is that the ground round the hole ( which is mostly under water is) being frozen with liquid nitrogen to stabilise the hole. Martin might like to comment on this. I also have a feeling that soil frozen like this goes to a horrible mush once thawed.
Kristin stayed in the hotel today feeling weak and with a sore throat while I went out to walk beside the canals one last time. The canals are lovely but the main shopping area of the Damrak is simply cheap, international and nasty. At lunch time she was noticeably improved.
We have at last sussed the tram system which is efficient and with frequent services - however it does change somewhere every day so you have to use it all the time or get lost.