So I bought the boat, now it was time to get it into its home berth. Having so little experience on boats in general, let alone navigating one that I don’t know for the first time on my own was obviously out of the question. In need for somebody experienced, both with navigating the Norwegian weather/fjords and troubleshooting almost everything which could break, my natural choice was again to take my father-in-law, Jens, with me on board.
Since I wanted the boat close by as soon as possible I jumped right into the planning phase. One concern was that in winter time the weather in western Norway can be quite bad at weeks on end. That combined with the possibly unruly sea state and the unfamiliarity with the boat could lead to a rather unpleasant trip.
The Plan
With the weather in mind we hoped to find a route that avoids open ocean. If the weather was going to to turn foul we wanted to be able to be sheltered fast. Luckily I found a route without exposure to the north sea, and the only stretch which could have had some swells in it was a 10nm north-east segment over Selbjørnsfjorden.
The route details:
- Start: Urangsvåg (59°48’48” N 5°08’49” E)
- End: Florvåg (60°25’17” N 5°14’36” E)
- Distance: 43nm
- Estimated time: 8h 30min / 5kts average
The next challenge was daylight. The date we planned for this journey was the 18th December and sunset that day started 15:30 local time. So we needed to get to Selbjørnsfjorden before that time since the first part requires navigation by sight in the narrow natural canals of Bømlo. From there on we could navigate by light sectors of navigation marks.
The Execution
The days leading up to the 18.12.19 the weather forecast was promising. So we departed early from Askøy to Bergen and took express ferry from there to Rubbestadneset.
Bryggen early in the morning seen from the ferry
One and a half hour later, approximately 09:45, we arrived in Bømlo where we were picked up by the former owner. After some time of going through papers, checking equipment (especially the lights) we were on our way by 11 o’clock. By then the sun had come up, there was no cloud in sight and winds were calm.
Motoring 
Traffic 9 o’clock
The first part of the route was calm and we were mostly concentrated on navigating through the maze of waterways. The autopilot did its work keeping us on a steady heading and everything was working better than expected. No technical hick-ups at all.
We made good progress and only 1:30h later we reached Selbjørnsfjorden. The wind freshend up slightly from south east, just to about 8-10kts. I was eager to try to sail and we set unfurled the genoa and motor-sailed a short while. Since the wind was steady, there were almost no waves and everything worked better than expected for a virgin journey we set out to deploy the mainsail, too. We did in the end, but the whole ordeal would probably have been easier if we had furled the genoa first. Our approach led to some interesting maneuvering into the wind with the motor running, all while the genoa was flapping about. In the end we were successful and with all sails deployed we were doing a steady 6,5kts on a broad reach in the light breeze.
So we continue on, tried all kinds of switches, levers and valves, browsed through the huge folder of documentation which came with the boat and made further progress towards our destination.
Soon the sun set, we took in the sails, and now it was essentially navigating by GPS position on the iPad map, lights along the coastline and various illuminated shallows. From time to time larger vessels were heading toward us and without any AIS it was at least once rather interesting to figure out their distance and course in relation to us.
After six and a half hours we passed the bridge to Sotra and entered even for me familiar waters (I did some kayaking in the area before). Around here I felt that it had a long day.
One of the last pictures I took was us passing the bridge over to Askøy, which removed the last doubt, that we made the trip without any incidence.
We arrived at our destination at 18:30, tired and somewhat cold. The last maneuver was to get the boat into its berth which turned out harder that it expected. We, or rather Jens, managed it in the end. Nevertheless, I will have to find a new spot in the marina if I want to get in and out of there without any near miss into another boat. Without bow thruster the inner berthing is just too tight for a 35ft boat.
All in all a successful maiden voyage. No technical incidences, the boat performed as expected and the weather was actually so good that I managed to become slightly sunburned in my face … in Norway in December that is …
Syvsover 