…of Rudders, Races and Ragtime
Skudeneshavn on Friday was a lot prettier in the bright sunshine of Friday than it had been in the low cloud and drizzle of Thursday. We had a walk around the narrow streets and quaint corners of the old town, bought the elusive chart 24 at the local bookshop, visited the excellent co-op and loaded our baskets with various varieties of pickled herring and some Tuborg.
We motored into the wind back up to the small bay where the
Dresden wreck was located and Charles and JK dived it. A wonderful experience
it was too, the ship tilted over onto its port side and lying on quite a steep
slope. We swam down to the stern, dropped over the rail and into the inky gloom
of the the space between the seabed and the port side of the huge rudder. Down
to the bottom at 48m, through the gap between rudder and hull and then up to
where the starboard screw had once hung. 
Charles
looked upwards on the starboard side of the rudder to take this magnificent
photo. Truly awesome. JK did some more posing for Charles around the stern
rails and further forward with anemones and large “lump-sucker” fish but then
it was time to surface and make to the north to collect Frank.
Frank duly collected, together with chicken and large
quantities of gin, we decided F and JG should have a warm-up scalloping-type
dive. The isolated danger mark just N of Kopervik looked good on the chart,
with depths from 8m to 30m available to the divers. There seemed to be rather a
lot of yachts heading towards Kopervik as the divers were kitting up on the
foredeck and JK jokingly commented to the divers that he hoped they wouldn’t
mind diving during a yacht race. As we approached the mark to put the divers
down, a large yacht with a battle-flag on the forestay, under power, converged
on our port side and hooted at us. As we had the right of way, J waved cheerily
to him, pointed to the buoy where we were dropping the divers and also to our
A-flag, and he passed under our stern. Divers down, he came back after a while
into hailing distance….. 
Yes,
he was the committee and starting boat for the race back to Haugesund, yes, the
50 yachts now approaching us from leeward were in earnest, and yes, the buoy
where we had chosen to dive was one end of the start line! The line ran east
across the sound, and yes, that was the direction we had suggested Frank and
John should swim! It was a fine sight, a brisk force 5-6 northerly making the
race yachts surge along as they jockeyed for position in the 15 minutes before
the start, deciding which jib to put up and wondering what that idiot British
ketch was doing messing around near the start line. True to plan, the diver’s
red surface marker broke the surface 20 yards from a knot of yachts, but
fortunately the divers themselves stayed submerged for another 10 minutes which
gave a chance for the majority of the class starts to take place. It was only
the cruisers who got the full benefit of John, Frank and a large bag of
“klamshel” emerging from the briny.
We motored up into Haugesund following the race yachts and
managed to sneak onto the end of a raft of six other boats beyond the bridge –
thus becoming the “Siste baat” of the row, and no further berthing allowed
outside of us. 
What
do you think we had for dinner – yes, it was klams with ginger and garlic
butter followed by klams baked with potatoes, carrots and onions, topped off
with a cheese sauce and “egge” broken onto the top of the dish.
After dinner, around 10pm, we climbed across 12 sets of railings to reach the land and then perambulated around the lively festival scene, entirely failing to buy the £20 day tickets that were still on sale but with a very short sell-by date. We eventually found a non-ticket venue – the ‘Jesus Café’ a few streets back which was doing a roaring trade in coffee, waffles and polser together with a live trio. When they closed down around midnight, we split into two groups. Frank and JG went back to the boat for a kip, but ended up on the next door Princess 33 powerboat having a bit of a rave with Anneka, her husband and another couple, while Bob and JK went back for a bit more of the jazz trio and dancing aboard the Hydro ship. Migrating from there to another café at 01:30 and then similarly waylaid on the Princess en route to Voltair it was almost 04:00 by the time the last crewman was snoring away.
Saturday was another lovely ‘northerly’ day, with blue sky,
sunshine and a brrrisk brrreeze. The town procession got off to a good start
with “When you’re smiling” and, once they had passed us through the dense
crowds, (a bit like viewing the Severn Bore), we nipped down a parallel street
and back to get ahead of the procession again and again
.
By this time it was “Ice Cream – you scream” and the crowd were loving the
costumes of the pretty blondes parading before the instrumentalists.
By the time the parade had gone all down the main street, turned through two right angles and come back all along the seafront, everyone was ready for a beer, so we retired to the yacht to regroup.
Time for a look at the chart, an assessment of the likely weather and sea conditions, and the next leg of our passage.
Catch you again soon – Bob, Charles, Frank and J’s G & K.
Click here for our previous postcard
Click here for our later postcard