Limhamn,
Skåne,
Sweden
Friday, July 11, 2008
Having a boat isn't just about sunshine and sailing...in order to keep the boat in tip top shape you have to maintain it. Also we needed to weigh the boat as part as the entry requirements for the X-yachts Gold Cup in Copenhagen the next week. So Mårten, Staffan, and I headed south to Limhamn to get it weighed and also clean off all the gunk on the bottom of the boat. We sailed via the motor down past the city of Malmö and around the outlying areas and kept close to shore. In about 2 hours we were in the harbor and ready to be weighed. We were provided a list by the competition committee as far as items that are allowed on the boat during the weigh in. The boat must have a minimum weight in order to compete. After reviewing the list we had to dump a lot of stuff off the boat including all the sails and many ropes and other items. The crane in Limhamn was really nice and the mounting was no big thing. The boat weighed in at 4530kg, 7kg short of the minimum. So not to bad...we can easily add some lead weights to it inside. If it had been like 20 kg...or more then that would have been a problem. After we weighed the boat...we took the boat back up out of the water and gave it a good washing. The algae accumulates quickly and can slow the boat. Barnacles are also a problem as they latch onto the keel as well as the motor. Last time we cleaned the boat it took forever having only brushes and a hose. But this time we had the high powered hose so it went much faster this time. The boat looked nice and white once we were finished hosing it off and presentable enough to be raced against the other boats next week.
We hoisted the main sail on the way home and I steered the boat and got up to about 9knots just with the main. I caught a few good waves and maintained some nice speed. I wanted to see my top speed on the instrument panel when we got back to Lomma harbor, but was shocked when the speed read 71knots!! The reason for that was because the high powered hose was shot on the reader underneath the boat when we were cleaning and hadn't be reset so it recorded that as the fastest speed for the trip. Haha.
