As promised on last blog entry on my sailing dream, here's info on my next trip, where we should sail Lipari 1, [LR] from Copenhagen to Oslo.
Start from Copenhagen

The trip started out nicely at 18:26 from Tuborg Harbor

The cat was sailing very pleasantly and I was really impressed with the auto-pilot (my experiences with auto-pilots are with very date ones, so don't put too much into it, see later too).
The Cat dream experience
We had dinner before Helsingør and this was my first tried out eye-opener (knew the theory, but had still to try it out), we set the autopilot and just had dinner inside in the large cabin. Watch was even easier than from the bridge because of the big windows. Nausea? None at all even though the wind was more than 20 knots we did not really notice (help from shore did help of course, as you will hear later waves can be felt in a cat too, it just happens a bit later and still more pleasant than in a keel boat).

Hven, the home of Tycho Brahe, who founded the modern scientific method of basing theories on solid measurements (repeated forever and ever by the very inspiring physics teacher Jens Martin Knudsen [deceased]) was passed at 20:00

21:20 we passed between Helsingborg and Kronborg in Helsingør (the place of Shakespear's Hamlet):

Then around 2330 things started to go wrong, and they would continue to go terribly wrong, not fatally so but still we ended up in pretty bad shape.
Things go horribly wrong
Somewhere west of the lighthouse of Kullen, I left the bridge to go fetch my rubber boots, I ended up delivering sacrifices to the good King Neptune. While doing that there was a snap and the genoa started to be very noisy, it turned out the line for pulling it up (sorry my maritime english is not yet that good, I will return and fix the wording perhaps). The captain came my on-watch partner to assistance, and a little later I joined in.
While we tried to get the sail under control the auto pilot erred with an error message. Basically it could not control the rudder and we were now at the 3m waves mercy turning side to as the cat does. It did not feel dangerous in the capsize way, but it definitly was not pleasant so We started the twin engines and we were able to control the ship at a rudimentary way. We keept the ship around 30 degrees to the waves which felt the best in the situration. Applying much force trying to make the wheel turn, broke something with a snap and removed all hope of getting steering again from the deck.
Alas it around 2345 we called pan pan pan. The next hour or so we tried to keep stationary since large cargo ships passed by in a few hundred meters's distance - we seeme to between two large ship routes. Very frightening to say the least, especially since we have all heard stories about captains on big ships sleeping sometimes drunk.
The real men of the sea
Finally, probably around an hour later we saw some the very beautiful sight of string lights on a sweedish Search And Rescue boat.


After many many attempts in the large waves [see a movie clip where I try to film the SAR boat] we succeeded in getting a rope attached and they stated towing us towards land. We had to try to steer a little with our engines to now tighten the rope too much. The task did not get easier when backboard engine seemed not have any effect any more, perhaps some line had come in the screw. A very long and dangerous pull where the Swedish crew showed their great skills at their job. One time we passed just around two meters from a very heavy version of a starboard buyo after having been headed for it until 10 meters before.
To cut what felt eternal, we were able to securely attach the ship to land at  approximately 0300 hours. We were in Höganäs.

Followning was a "søforklaring" with the crew where they took note of the boats owner and we shared the experience. We had all been seasick, one after the other, and some heavily so. The sweedish crew had also had it, including a veteran with 30-40 years of experience on sea.
Good night?
0400, after some bread with cheese, I was about to tuck myself in my sleeping bag. Lipari 1 has a nice master cabin which I was fortunate enough to get

One more obstacle, the hatch had not been completely closed, one of the wings had not been closed, so around a litre of water had soaked my bed. Fortunately before unpacking my sleeping bag).
What went wrong with the rudder and wheel? What went wrong with the backboard motor. We are not a 100% sure, perhaps the broken line from the genoa went into the rudder? Perhaps later the towing line went into the propeller? Next day I dove to look for traces but to my inexperienced eyes I did not see much rope anywhere underneath, so I guess the FP will have to make a closer investigation. If I get to know I will update this page.
Oslo - well another time, we decided it was best to take a day off after that experience and let the cause be looked for in greater detail. This broke my time table, so I had to go back to Denmark with the other dane. The two Norwegians, the captain included staid onboard and will find a way to carry on the Tour d'Europe of the Lipari 1.
Conclusion
Phew. Not exactly a dream experience! But, after taking in the experience in, I actually think that it has made my dream come closer. This kind of experience are hard to get. The experience strenghened my confidence in being able to take care of my family on a ship should the such unlucky circumstances ever come my way again. What does not kill you makes you stronger.