“That one’s an H-boat, and that, and that, …”


"That one’s an H-boat, and that, and that, …"
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

I walked to Café Carusel in Kaivopuisto for lunch today, and took this photo of the boats out of the water for the winter. The white boat second from right, with a patchy blue keel and no cover, is an H-boat, the same as our own Kittiwake. And so is the white boat two left of that, and the blue boat left of that, and the white boat two more to the left – you can recognize them by the graceful continuous shallow curve of the bow.

There were five more H-boats further along the line: H-boats are the most common type of keelboat in Finland. Eve used to get quite sick of me pointing them out as we walked past the yacht harbour in the summer: “That one’s an H-boat, and that, and that, …”. I never thought that we would have one too.

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Kittiwake at Rajasaari


Kittiwake at Rajasaari
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

Winter is coming, and in Helsinki it’s time to lift all the boats out of the water so they won’t get damaged by the ice. On Saturday we lifted out Kittiwake (more precisely, a large crane-lorry lifted her out), and she’s now sitting on her metal frame waiting for next year. We still have to build a wooden frame along her deck to support the plastic sheet which will keep off the snow.

The bottom looks so scruffy because it has been cleaned professionally with a pressure-hose. It was a very impressive device with its own petrol engine, and it stripped off the season’s small barnacles with ease. It also took off all the loose bottom paint, revealing several different colours from previous seasons. The light blue paint this year was totally unsuited to the boat’s above-water colour scheme, and next year we’ll be using red paint (like the much bigger boat behind Kittiwake).

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Unioninkatu at night


Unioninkatu at night
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

Just playing with my cameraphone.

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Laivakoira (ship’s dog)


Laivakoira (ship’s dog)
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

Kittiwake has a mascot, a dog we picked up in the Turku archipelago. The badge on the lifejacket says ‘Pida saaristo siistina’ (keep the archipelago clean), which is a charity organisation that does good work there.

We should give the dog a name. I thought, ‘Horatio’ (after Admiral Nelson) – any better ideas?

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Kittiwake at Malkasaari


Kittiwake at Malkasaari
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

We sailed yesterday to Malkasaari, a small island in eastern Helsinki. It only took about 3 hours, which was good as we didn’t set off until after 4pm. On the way we called Kati & Janne, and as they were already out in the ‘Buster’ speed-boat they came to the island too and joined us in a barbecue.

Now we’re off again, and planning to stop at Suomenlinna for lunch. Today the sea is smooth and the wind light, but we’re still gliding along at about two knots, plenty to get us there and wonderfully peaceful.

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Wedding anniversary lunch


Wedding anniversary lunch
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

We’re meeting friends for a picnic this evening, so we decided to celebrate our fifth wedding anniversary by having lunch together at Hakaniemi market square. It was warm and sunny, with a string & flute quartet playing traditional music nearby – what a shame we both had to return to work afterwards!

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Eve & Kittiwake at Kaunissaari


Eve & Kittiwake at Kaunissaari
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

On the way home from Onas we stopped at Kaunissaari (‘Beautiful Island’). It was nice enough, with a good, big harbour and a café, but otherwise unremarkable.

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Kittiwake at Onas


Kittiwake at Onas
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

We sailed yesterday to our yacht club’s island harbour at Onas, near Porvoo. They have a really nice place there, with a couple of jetties, a kitchen/barbecue outbuilding, a big sauna and a couple of compost toilets. There are even a couple of Optimist dinghies and a Snipe dinghy you can sail, though it would take a couple of hours to step the Snipe’s mast etc. so we didn’t have time. The whole place has a feeling of being cared for – very nice to see.

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Sailing videos

I promised to post some videos I took of Kittiwake sailing – here they are. They’re quite big so may take a long time to download (don’t try unless you have broadband) and will only play on very recent versions of media players like Quicktime or RealPlayer.

They give you a very good feeling of how fast Kittiwake is (she’s doing about five knots in the videos) and in particular how fast she feels, since Kittiwake has quite low sides (‘freeboard’) and so you’re very close to the water rushing past.

One thing I’d like you to notice is how there are no railings on the narrow bow, where you have to kneel to take down the jib. Now imagine doing that as the boat is tossing through stormy waves, when the bow is wet and slippery and steeply sloping, actually digging into the biggest waves. No wonder Eve makes me do that :-).

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Homeward bound


Homeward bound
Originally uploaded by Greygriffin.

We’ve left Lähteelä and are running down the east coast of Porkkala, bound for Helsinki and home. It’s been a great holiday, with lots of adventure and new experiences. It’s strange to think that it’s been two and a half weeks, although the first days do seem a long time ago.

The Turku archipelago was very beautiful, but as Eve commented the islands and coastline around Helsinki are just as good and a lot more convenient to visit.

So, would we do it again? Certainly, though a bigger and roomier boat would make it even better. We’d hope to spend more nights in ‘natural harbours’ and fewer in ports. And we’d be even more careful about being caught out by heavy winds…

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