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when i first saw her, she was a sorry sight, but strong!
with the help and advices from the nearby shipyard i got her afloat in one peace. |
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since i had hardly any money, especially not for harbor-fees, i stayed out on anchor until the end of november while i sailed in and out with an optimist to transport the materials for rebuilding the interiour. |
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the inside was spartanic at first. |
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but i found it nice enough when i was finnished. here my first crew, sasha from austria. at least he had sailed a boat before, that's more than i could say about myself then. |
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i put in an oil-heater which i could use for cooking, too. but the bastard would not work very often. whenever it failed, and i froze beside the cold oven, it felt so much worse than not having any heat at all, so one night when i came on board and the heater failed again, i threw it over bord. |
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by the end of november i moved into the harbour, the local sailclub in kappeln (asc) felt a bit sorry for the guy out on anchor in the middle of the winter, so i got a berth for one mark a day. here the chimney sticks out of a porthole, but i spent all winter on board without working heating. it was n o t warm... |
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but it was a cosy live never the less, the new interiour is much better than the old. here i try to dry some cigarettes, but in the cold they would not dry. i was always dressed in wintercloths, and i could not visit people in their homes if they heated too much, because even in shorts and t-shirt it was too hot. |
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by april the ice has melted enough for the boat to sail, and i set course north to scandinavia. i thought rather than sailing out in the north sea and the english channel, i would take the northern rout which is a bit longer, but more sheltered, it would give me time to learn to sail before i meet the heavy traffic in the english channel. it worked, too. i sailed north with a slight mix of roadmaps and old seacharts, partly in russian, not knowing the difference between a sheet and a halliard in the beginnig, but learning every day. |
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there was a lot of fog this spring, and little wind, which gave me time to learn the easy way. and i always found my way in the fog, i did not save money on buying a bad compass. |
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time seemed to stand still on bord. |
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this was in danmark. on anchor, i sleep on deck while i wait for the washing to dry. |
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the island of møn. mapitom lies on anchor, i think actually i have only been into one harbour in danmark (tuborg havn), and one harbour in sweden (gothenborg) and two in norway (grimstad and tananger), else i was on anchour every night until i came to schottland. |
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in gothenborg my old friend gaffel came as sailingnigga on bord and came over to grimstad, norway. here we stayed for one month. |
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sunrise in norway. |
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in grimstad came reni on board, she sailed the rest of this journey with me until i sold mapitom 1997 in france. |
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this is the way to tie up a boat in scandinavia, straight on the rocks. |
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not many austrian flaggs seen around here. |
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miduta, my faithful dingi, the working horse of every live-aboard. i lost her later in an hurrican in the bay of biscay (along with mapitom's rudder): |
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in northern schottland we anchored off the coast in a gale. the anchor held, but it didn't look too healthy afterwards... |
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northern ireland in fog. |
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falling dry with the tide in southern ireland to paint the underwater hull, and check it before we go out in the north atlantic. |
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we spent the winter in dublin, again without heater on board. just candle light and warm jumpers. |
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ringsend basin, the harbor where we wintered in ireland. reni went climbing in france, and i stayed on the backside of the u2-studio while they recorded the album "pop". since i only listened to classic music, i didn't now them at first. i spent a lot of time with them in the studio before i found out that they were famous. |
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the band was looking after me really well, asking me in for dinner or a drink every evening, and when bono or the edge came on board, they always had a good bottle with them. when we sailed on in the spring, they gave me a guitar they had signed for me, by all four of them. that is supposed to be rare. when we visited reni's friends in norway later, i was receaved everywhere with "oh, so you are the idiot who became friends with u2 and didn't know who they were!" |
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i found this graveyard near dublin on one of my bycicle-trips. |
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the painter tom campell on board. we were good friends during the winter, but when he sailed with us to england and then back to ireland, the land based friendship floated away... |
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we earned quite well in dublin during the winter. here we painted a huge picture that told the story of mapitom's odyssee through northern europe. |
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reni taking the first nightshift in the north sea, heading west. |
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the route: germany - danmark - sweden - norway - schottland - caledonia canal - crinnan canal - ireland - england - ireland - france - channel islands - belgium - netherlands - germany in the bay of biscay we run into a storm with 65 knots of wind, and the rudder broke. with an emergency rudder we sailed back to france, where i built a new rudder. |
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heading back north through the dutch canals. |