Adventure always starts with failure

The adventures or rather misadventures of Gen and Carl actually starts with failures. After dropping everything in the North American continent to come to Sweden to rejoin my boyfriend, Carl, we had but vague plans for our winter. As usual they kept metamorphosing into something even vaguer when the spectre of collapse loomed. But finally like true vagabonds, we threw caution to the wind and set course to execute plan Tre Kronor. The Tre Kronor is a Swedish sailing vessel, a brig, shortly returned from Copenhagen and in the midst of a downrig. Downrigging means taking down or dismantling part of the rig, spars or sails and bringing them down and inside, to protect them from winter. After arranging to stay onboard while helping them with this process, we departed for Skeppsholm, a small island in the middle of Stockholm city where the brig is docked. And did I mention it was in downtown Stockholm?

But upon arriving there, we found the brig downrigged and most of the crew taking their leave of the ship. So we ended up cleaning, like a very thorough cleaning of the whole boat, while the powers high above decided our fate. Are we going to be able to stay onboard and have a job, or what? And amidst all the cleaning and waiting around, dirty news makes it’s appearance in the form of cutbacks. The director of the organization has stop all spending, no expense for the winter season, even for maintenance and general upkeep of the ship. Luckily for the ship, it is very new and will come out of this none-maintenance scheme fairly ok. Unfortunately for us, not only have we no work, but no place to stay, because zero spending also means no water, gas, heating and whatnot on the ship as well. In short nobody can live onboard. Yet like bums we are, we ended up bumming a place to stay at Anton’s, a friend of Carl. And while all this is going down, an officer of the Tre Kronor, Ib, has kept an ear out. His family owns the Vega, a three-masted schooner docked at the Vasa museum, in the middle of a big refit. He therefore realized what an opportunity this is, to have two experienced sailors who could tackle just about any maintenance project he can imagined without him having to supervise, explain, instruct or help us. And at such a bargain! So we end up helping them out for two days, by building their greenhouse to cover and protect the ship from snow and ice. We got to meet some of the family and show our worth and this seemed to work out. Since we left them with the promise of getting in touch, once Ib has talked with the rest of the family and discussed us working there for room and board.

Ultimately, failure came knocking on our door again. After spending some time bumming at Anton’s, hanging out with friends and getting slightly intoxicated to a point where we got lost in the subway at four in the morn, we received news that it wouldn’t be possible for somebody to live onboard the Vega. Since they wanted to do major carpentry projects, they didn’t want anybody living there....



They we were, temporarily living at Anton’s, plan-less, jobless and practically money-less... Finally, luck did finally smiled on us, it pays never to despair! Ib’s parents, who owns the Vega, also have a foundation that owns other wooden boats as well. One of them, the Linnea, is currently hauled out of water and being worked on in their shipyard, in the small town of Gamleby. And so next week we leave for Gamleby, about three hours south of Stockholm and two hours north of Kalmar. And once we get there, you shall all learned about the schooner Linnea and the Gamleby shipyard.


Photos: Carl Johansson