Enhuizen to Lemmer – 18.5 miles in 5 hours and 10 minutes
There seems to be something wrong with the weather. When we go away on the boat it is supposed to be windy, cloudy, grey perhaps with a gale or two thrown in. Someone though seems to have thrown away the Charmary weather rule-book as we had another day of blistering heat and no wind. We left Enkhuizen around 9.45 (after some ‘chandlery therapy’) and seeing 5-6 knots of wind on the instruments got over-excited and put full sail up. The weather soon put us in our place and for the next hour or so, we had little to no wind and lots to too much of the sun. The discussion on board revolved around how to make an appropriate sun-shade. if we do that of course, things will return to normal, but …
After an hour or so, we did get a little breeze and managed to sail towards Lemmer at about 3-3.5 knots- a relaxing and pleasant run. As we approached the Lemmergeul channel we took all the sails down to watch the Skutsje sailing. The Skutsjes were originally Frisian cargo boats much like a Thames barge – shallow and with leeboards. They are 12 to 20m long and a maximum of 4m beam to allow for the standard size of Frisian locks. Each boat represents a town or city in Friesland and we were surprised by how much support there was for them. Large charter boats were anchored all round the course watching. There was even a film crew hoisted above a large barge on a gantry and one barge which looked like it was dedicated to radio and communications. Obviously a major local event. The finale is another day’s racing in Lemmer tomorrow, though we may be gone before then as we plan to move on tomorrow. With a decent sailing breeze forecast, we want to try and get some proper sailing done!
