Buy us a beer!

Sunday, April 24, 2022

Szczecin - Swinoujscie

Another motoring day, as we wanted to reach the Baltic sea coast harbour of Swinoujscie before a forecasted gale. We used the calm of lake Dabie to bend the sails so that if the wind actually wasn’t on the nose, we could sail a bit. No such luck!

Getting the mainsail on track

At the Szczecin lagoon we let our tiller pilot steer the boat, and enjoyed a lunch in relative calm. After that the waves started building up, and reducing our travel speed.

Splashing up the lagoon

Some dodging of traffic and evading fishing nets followed.

When we reached the canal leading into the Swinoujscie harbor, the gale caught up to us, both stronger and earlier than assumed. This meant progress was quite slow and bumpy. At worst, we were only making 2.5kt over ground at full RPMs, less than half of what we’d normally do.

The Swinoujscie marina is pretty big, and open to exactly this wind direction. The season hasn’t apparently quite started here, so they haven’t even repaired the winter damage to the piers yet.

After a bit of wandering, we found an intact pier with couple of other boats in it. Making the turn through the wind to approach it proved difficult. Eventually we made it, and with some local help were able to pull the boat into a proper side tie.

Swinoujscie marina

We plan to spend the work week here, do some smaller boat projects, and reprovision the boat before heading out to the Baltic proper.

From the logbook

Time Position Course Speed Log Weather Remarks
24.04. 7:12 Z n/a baro 1010 hPa Departure AZS, Suski steering
24.04. 8:55 Z 53°31'3"N 14°38'0"E 349° wind 3.8kt clouds 2/8 Joined main shipping lane from Dabie
24.04. 10:02 Z 53°36'2"N 14°35'0"E 340° wind 6.9kt clouds 3/8 Nissinen on duty
24.04. 11:00 Z 53°40'59"N 14°30'34"E 320° wind 12.7kt sea state 3/10 clouds 2/8 baro 1008 hPa Watch change. Suski out Bergie in. Nissinen working hard
24.04. 12:57 Z 53°47'35"N 14°21'6"E 310° wind 14kt sea state 3/10 clouds 4/8 baro 1008 hPa Nissinen off duty. Entering the channel in Usedom
24.04. 15:12 Z n/a 27 knots of head winds and waves means <2.5 speed! Speed through water 4.2. Harbour. Box 5.5. Side tied to pier with gusts up to 30 pushing from side. Proper hafenkino. Lille Ø didn't want to turn through wind so we could have driven a side tie. Harbour fees 78EUR (5 nights, 5kWh power, 4 showers)