And then arrived the long awaited morning of the 19th of May when we flyed from Oulu to Turku. We were really overexcited. The night before, both of us saw fuzzy dreams about our new yacht.
And then arrived the long awaited morning of the 19th of May when we flyed from Oulu to Turku. We were really overexcited. The night before, both of us saw fuzzy dreams about our new yacht. Suwena was waiting for us in Nauticat berth in Hirvisalo docks. It felt really wonderful to turn the key first time in Suwena’s door lock and step aboard. First moments we were only smiling.
After that we have been busy with various chores. Five days have passed like flying. We have went through every system on our yacht. We made a comprehensive check list as we did it for our first boat. The difference now is that the list is 10 pages long as we have much more points to verify. Going through all devices and rig has the benefit that during this process we also learn how everything works.
Several people from the boatyard have introduced the yacht functions to us. For example Andrus and Kaj Gustafsson spent two hours only in engine room, going through engine, generator, batteries and other devices and their service schedule.
We have tried to use every day one gadget at a time so we can ask any rising questions face to face. Of course we know that Nauticat always supports theirs customers after the yacht delivery. But somehow it feels more easy to clear all questions immediately.
The yacht is thoroughly tested in boat yard before the hand over. We had a funny incident when I quickly put our Thursday grocery shopping into the refrigerator. Andrus asked if the fridge is on? I answered that it feels cold and put the food into the refrigerator. In the evening we went to eat something and all our foods were fully frozen. The fridge can also be used as a freezer and during the testing somebody in boatyard left the thermostat at -30 degrees. It takes less to deep freeze anything. We left the fridge and foods to warm up ror a night, ate some bread slices only and went to sleep.
On Friday and Saturday we also went sailing. On Friday it felt magnificent to shut down the engine for a first time and move forward with the wind power only. On Saturday I was on short spin inside when Andrus shut the engine again. It is difficult to say which was more puzzling, first time when the silence descended on Friday or the frightening on Saturday that something was wrong. Maybe it is possible to become accustomed to turning off the engine and everything still works 🙂
We started the sailing career of Suwena in capricious winds of Airisto. Patrik Gustafsson from Nauticat trained us to sail Suwena. Wind strength changed all the time. We tried all points of sail from close-hauled beating to running and we had a plenty of opportunities to practice tacking and jibing. However we got the best speed during the broad reaching.
Harbour manoeuvres will require some new practice. Suwena’s loaded weight comes near to 20 metric tons and her handling is different from our previous boat. Andrus commented that the inertia of this mass can really be noticed. During the acceleration and deceleration it takes a moment before the boat responds to controls. Also the yacht is almost 5 meters longer and I must be fast to get from bow to stern during the mooring. In addition there are steps both up and down on a side deck. This is the appeal of the boating that there are many new situations and own skills can always be perfected even more.
Out yacht is ready for the most part. She only needs some last minute adjustments. For example tomorrow we will get a bimini and some devices will receive the final adjustments. Few more days for bunkering the boat and we can go towards Ă…land and Sweden