The autumn went by with waiting for a definitive answer from the ensurance company. Will the boat be repaired or scrapped? Serious damage to the hull!

Fortunately we were able to borrow an Express and got to sail a little in the autumn races.

Finally a week ago i got the final answer, the boat will be repaired!

Nice! its a good feeling and it is at a very professional yard at

www.sandtangen.no

So I am confident the boat will be better when finished in the spring than what it was before.

We are all looking very much forward to the spring.

While sailing the Express the team has increased and potentially we are now Birger, Helge, Snorre, Petter, Jan Arne and Jørgen.

Soon a complete team. We need two or three more to have a contineous crew.

At Sandtangen totally emptied and stripped, waiting to remove mast, drop keel and remove engine.

Looking so much forward to spring!!!

The very nice FC10 Frou Frou from Netherlands made the trip all the way to Norway this summer and visited me in Tønsberg.

They where a crew of four on this long trip with a not too spacy sports boat.

It was very inspiring with their enthusiasm for the FC10 and how they have maintained and shined the boat. It looks like new!

See the collections of videos they have made in the video collection or here in their youtube stream:

http://www.youtube.com/user/FrouFrou1060?feature=watch

 Frou Frou with crew and me in Tønsberg harbour

My nephew Martin and i went from Skåtøy to his very first sailing trip.

He was very good and seems to have a natural talent.

Unfortunately the skipper lacks such talent and i managed to run the boat on a underwater cliff in the archipelago.

The impact was really hard and the boat immediately took in water.

SAR vessel approaching

I called for help on Tjøme Radio and only after 15 minutes the SAR vessel was reaching us. Good to have a VHF radio. But in the stress i forgot to hit the DSC button and gave the position verbally instead. The position was not transfered correctly to the SA but they found us after some dialogue on the radio.

These guys are so phantastic. They installed a pump and took us to a harbour where the boat was liftet up and set on dry land.

Martin and me had a bit of a shock. But the guys on the SAR were so cool and they let Martin sit in the front seat while towing.

 At Sandtangen yard

All in all it was an exiting experience scary but in the end it was something to write on facebook about.

He became a sailor in short time!

They also gave me some psychological boost. I really felt like an idiot but they tried to convince me that this could happen to everybody and from their experience it happens.

Martin and i boosted our egos in the evening by watching others making a fool of them selves. Such idiots!!! :) :

Only days after there was a horrible accident in the archipelago with a collision between a taxi boat and a motor boat in the middle of the night. The same SAR vessel was rescuing people but there were casualities.

Support the fabulous Norwegian Redningsselskapet!

http://www.redningsselskapet.no/

In July i sailed the boat single handed to Skåtøy for our annual trip to the nice poetry festival on the island.

Very nice sailing conditions!

I alway appreciate the single handed sailing  :)