DESTINATION DENMARK  - 1991

Several magazine articles have described the Limfjord simply as a
short cut to the Baltic (for example, 'Roundabout Denmark' in PBO
No 187, page 47). Kevin Seymour recently used the words "it (the
Limfjord) was quite beautiful and with so many small harbours and
delightful anchorages we promised ourselves we would cruise the
Limfjord, rather than use it as an access route" (see July 1991
Cruising Magazine - No 36). After reading these articles, it
seemed to my wife and I, that the Limfjord might be an ideal
cruising area for the trailer sailor and we decided to see if
this was true.

The Limfjord is Denmark's longest fjord cutting 80 miles across
northern Denmark from Thyboron on the North Sea to Hals on the
Kattegat. It contains several large expanses of water and a
number of unspoilt islands. In most areas the water depth is less
than 8 meters and being fairly shallow and nearly landlocked, the
waves never build up to any size even though northern Denmark is
noted for its strong winds.

We started planning our trip during the long dark winter
evenings, but it was difficult to find good information on
cruising the Limfjord. Mark Brackenbury's Baltic Southwest Pilot
was a good start, but our copy was printed in 1983. A visit to
the Danish tourist office in London produced a number of tourist
brochures and a very useful leaflet called 'Sailing on the
Limfjord' which contained a list of 27 yachting harbours. Our
first priority was to locate a suitable place for launching the
boat and parking the car and trailer. We were looking for a
harbour with a good concrete slipway extending to a water depth
of about 1m. Unfortunately the leaflet did not contain this kind
of detail but only indicated the harbours with either a slipway
or crane. Past experience of trailing has taught us that
continental slipways often disappear into gooey mud or have a
vertical drop 2 inches below the water. Many slipways are only
suitable for launching a small boat or dinghy. We really needed a
book describing the available slipways in greater detail. A
continental version of "Where to launch your Boat" would have
been very useful.

After examining all our available information we were still none
the wiser and so decided to write to the 3 largest harbours which
appeared suitable. Two of these replied in English and so earned
bonus points in our selection procedure. It is reassuring to know
that when you arrive after a 2 day road journey, you will be able
to communicate in English rather than have to struggle with the
dictionary and phrase book. Having discovered that Danish
pronunciation was difficult, we did not relish the thought of
discussing launching procedures and safe parking for the car and
trailer in pigeon Danish !

In the end we selected the town of Struer for launching; it had
marina berths for 550 boats, an English speaking harbour master,
was geographically convenient and possessed either a slipway of a
crane (we could not tell which from our information).

With 2 weeks available for our holiday, the next task was to
consult the car ferry brochures. Scandinavian Seaways run a
direct ferry from Harich to Esbjerg which is about 80 miles from
Struer. However, the fare seemed expensive even when using the
cheaper weekday Seapex Return rates. On the other hand, the P&O
ferry from Dover to Ostende was much cheaper. By using a
concessionary P&O fare and even allowing for the extra cost of
petrol we were able to halve the cost of the North Sea ferry.
Because we could travel over the weekend using the Dover route
and also pick a time to suite ourselves we were able to make up
the extra time spent by driving overland. Continental trailing is
very straightforward, we motor along at 50mph in the nearside
lane, stopping every few hours for a break in one of the frequent
motorway parking areas.

The next stage of planning was to examine the overland route in
more detail. Having spent another winter evening poring over
various road maps, our estimated distance for the journey from
Ostende to Struer worked out as 675 miles. We knew from previous
continental trails that this would take about a day and a half to
drive. The plan was now taking taking shape - a 15 day holiday
with 4 days of trailing would provide 11 days afloat on the
Limfjord. All we had to do now was to select the dates. Danish
guide books suggested that the school holidays finish at the
beginning of August but that flies can be a nuisance later on in
the month. This suggested that a departure date towards the end
of July would be most suitable.

Our Swift 18, 'Tiger Lily', has already been abroad five times
and is now well used to continental trailing (see Cruising
Magazine July 1990). She does not need much preparation, just a
thorough service of the trailer and some wax and polish on her
hull. Normally she is kept on the trailer and so is not anti-
fouled. On the road we treat Tiger Lily as a caravan using her
for sleeping and cooking, the problem of getting on and off being
solved by using a small portable ladder.

Departure date arrived and we set off for Dover, arriving in time
to catch the 1am ferry. Trailer sailors find it is best to cross
the English Channel fast asleep and let the ferry captain do all
the work !  After an early morning start on the Sunday and a few
short naps en-route we managed to cover 512 miles during the day,
ending up in a German parkplatz for the night. It was now only a
few miles to the Danish border and a half day drive to Struer. By
12:30pm next day we were looking for either the slipway or the
harbour master. As half expected, we found that the slipway was
unsuitable, but the harbour master said that we could be craned
in for œ15 within 15 minutes. The whole operation was conducted
very efficiently by a mobile crane in the main shipping dock and
next to a large grain silo. Although not in the true traditions
of a trailer sailor, this launching method is very convenient and
does not wet the trailer. A parking space for the trailer was
found and the car left in full view of the harbour master's
office, so that he could keep an eye on it.

Struer, a town in its own right, is still referred to as
Hosterbro-Struer in pilot books and on charts. Holsterbro is a
totally separate town about 10 miles south but Struer has a
superior  position with regard to road, rail and water
communications. It was established in 1917 to serve the needs of
industrial Hosterbro and so lacks any old world charm. However it
is proved to be ideal for preparing and provisioning the boat.
After raising the mast, our first tasks were to visit a bank to
obtain currency, stock up on fuel and food and purchase the
necessary Danish charts of the area. We had used the British
Admiralty chart No 2325 for planning. This covers the area
adequately in fathoms, but the Danish charts No 108 and 109 are
metric, have more detail and contain small panels showing major
harbours, difficult channels and bridges. Brackenbury's Baltic
Southwest Pilot also contains useful sketches of the harbours at
Livo and Fur but since it was published there have been a number
of changes, making a new edition desirable. This book described
only 14 out of the 27 harbours which were listed in the Danish
tourist office leaflet. We decided to make sketches of those
harbours not shown in the pilot book or as plans on the charts.

Dust from the grain silo near the commercial dock persuaded us to
move Tiger Lily to the pleasanter surroundings of the yachting
marina where there are showers and a restaurant. After driving
for 2 days, having located the harbour and launched the boat, it
was time to reward ourselves with a meal in the 'Marina Club'
restaurant. Although slightly expensive by English standards, the
meal was superb and it made an ideal start of the sailing phase
of the holiday. Our sailing plan was to circumnavigate the large
island of Mors, visit the small islands of Livo, Fur, Jegindo and
Veno and have one day off visiting the famous flower gardens near
Nykobing.

Sailing out on the first leg of a foreign cruise is always
exhilarating for the trailer sailor - venturing out into unknown
waters. We left Struer on a strong easterly wind which
necessitated a passage through the narrow channel separating Veno
from the mainland, past the bustling car ferry and up the west
coast of the island. To port we could see the vast wind turbine
farm near the Oddesund bridge. On passing the two pretty harbours
of Veno and Jegindo we promised ourselves that we would visit
them on our return journey. Near the southwest corner of Mors is
the island of Agero, part of which is a bird sanctuary and a
paradise for ornithologists.

Our destination was Doverodde, a tiny jetty harbour in the narrow
route west of the island of Mors. Doverodde is easily identified
from a distance by a large, apparently disused, grain silo.
Although the harbour is exposed to easterly winds, the rather
substantial floating jetty provided sheltered continental style
box moorings. In Denmark local yachtsmen leave a sign in their
box to indicate whether it is in use. A green 'FRI til' sign
means that it is available for visitors and a red 'OPTAGET' sign
shows that the owner will be returning to it. It is bad form to
enter a box displaying the occupied sign. Our technique for box
moorings is to prepare, on each side of the boat, a large bowline
in the end of a long piece of floating rope. One person motors
the boat slowly forward and the other slips the bowlines over the
posts. The two ropes are allowed to run freely over the pushpit
whilst motoring slowly forward. Just before the bow touches the
jetty one person jumps off whilst the other checks the forward
motion with a stern rope. The bow is secured to the jetty and the
stern ropes tightened up. It is important to use floating rope,
as motoring with non-floating rope disappearing over the side can
be disastrous.

In Doverodde we were unable to find the shop mentioned in the
pilot book, but the restaurant seemed to be very active. Although
giving the impression of a 'sleepy' harbour, there were recent
signs of improvements, particularly for dinghy sailors.

The bridge at Vilsund on the NW corner of Mors has one opening
span. Local yachts wishing to pass through normally fly the 'N'
flag from the spreaders - we sounded 'N' on the foghorn. Ten
minutes later the bridge opened and we headed for the town of
Thisted 4 miles away. The harbour entrance is difficult to make
out against the town, but the huge white grain silo just east of
the entrance is a very useful landmark. Once inside the harbour
we found that the only available box was for a vessel twice Tiger
Lily's size, however, no one seemed to mind and several other
large boxes were occupied by small boats. Our 12 meter rope was
only just long enough for that particular box.

Thisted is an ancient town and the local museum houses Denmark's
largest collection of Bronze Age artifacts. A few kilometres
southwest of the town lie a system of ramparts dating back to 900
AD. The marina is a few hundred yards from a modern pedestrian
shopping precinct.

Logstor is 20 miles east of Thisted and we woke to our third day
of easterly winds. We set out beating with one reef in the main
but thought it more prudent to motor sail through the channel
which separates Mors from northern Jutland. Danish buoys are
notoriously difficult to spot until you are right on top of them
and so careful navigation was required for the 11 mile passage
across the Logstor Bredning. We decided to sail this in two
stages, first beating eastwards to the Holmtage Hage buoy and
then closehauled to make the offing buoy marking the end of the 3
mile Logstor channel. The large sandbar west of the town has a
water depth of less than 1m. This used to inhibit ships from
entering the eastern Limfjord until Frederick VII's canal was
completed in 1861. The canal, built by hand, allowed ships to
bypass the sandbar, reach Logstor and so traverse the Limfjord.
However a channel was dredged across the sandbar between 1898 and
1901 and in 1913 the old canal was closed. The northern part of
the canal is now used as a harbour whilst its southern part
supports a rich and thriving plant and bird population.

Logstor has two harbours but most visiting yachts moor in the
Kanalhavn on the west side. Many moorings in the canal at Logstor
are side-to and in busy summer weekends boats raft out from each
side almost clogging the waterway. The town is built on a
hillside and because of its history as a trading and fishing port
has much to offer in old world character. It also contains a very
pleasant modern shopping area.

The pretty island of Livo is only 8 miles away. Its small harbour
can accommodate about 20 boats and is joined to the only village
on the island by a straight road bordered by wild roses -
absolutely beautiful. Cars and dogs are prohibited but it is
possible in a few hours to walk round the whole island except for
protected seal sanctuary on the shingle bank in the southeast
corner. No sooner had we tied up when a Swedish trailer sailor
and his wife came over to greet us. It turned out that they were
fellow members of the UK Trail and Sail Association - it's a
small world. We spent much of the afternoon swapping ideas about
the ideal boat and best cruising areas. Unfortunately they had to
leave in the late afternoon but then we met a young Danish couple
from one of the other boats in the harbour. They spoke good
English and later on we enjoyed an excellent meal in the village
restaurant.

The passage from Livo to Fur required sailing past the seal
sanctuary and round the southeast tip of the long Livo Tap tail.
Using binoculars we could see seals basking on the shingle. In
midsummer the seals give birth to their young.

The island of Fur is larger than Livo and its 9 square miles
contain several types of landscape of interest to geologists. The
harbour is very busy, particularly with car ferries which bustle
back and forth every few minutes. We noted that Brackenbury's
sketch of the harbour is now out of date as the number and layout
of the pontoon berths has changed. The passage from Fur to Mors
is fairly short and so we decided to spend the morning cycling
round the north of the island (bicycles can be hired cheaply from
a little shop near the harbour).

Nykobing, our next stop, is a 350 berth harbour on the east coast
of Mors. Brackenbury's pilot recommends the NW basin of the
Fiskerhaven as it is nearer the toilets and shops but we found
that new facilities had been built serving the marina area on the
SW side. The old Fiskerhaven is now a little run down and as the
difference in distance to the shops is only marginal, we
preferred the western basin. The town centre has a popular
pedestrian precinct offering a wealth of shops and a number of
restaurants, including Chinese and an Italian Pizza house.

Brilliant sunshine greeted the day chosen for our break from
sailing. We wanted to visit the famous Jesperhus Blomster Park
which is only a 15 minute bus ride away. The flower park was
opened in 1966 and now covers 15 acres. It houses a bird zoo,
aquarium, butterfly farm and children's playground. Over half a
million flowers were resplendent in their summer colours whilst
the cacti were almost bulging out of their greenhouse. Waterfalls
and fountains provide a soothing backdrop to more than 100
varieties of roses. We were impressed with the excellent
playareas provided for the children - the Danish seem
particularly good at this. An enjoyable excursion, even though we
had reverted from being trailer sailors into more traditional
tourists for a day.

It was now time to make good our promise to visit Jegindo. The 10
mile sail down the Salling Sund turned out to be another long
beat to windward with reefed main and shortened jib. However, we
did cheat a little and motor sail through the 26m high Salling
Sund bridge. Our arrival at Jegindo was straightforward once we
had located the tiny port and starboard channel marker buoys. It
appears that a new outer harbour has recently been completed; in
fact the top layer of tarmac was not yet laid on the jetty. On
enquiring about buying petrol, we were proudly shown the brand
new pumps being installed on the quay and told that it would be
available from next week!  The harbour was also able to boast two
excellent concrete slipways with more than 1m depth of water.
This was a major discovery because Jegindo is not a true island
but is joined to the mainland by a causeway carrying a good road.
Later inspection showed that Jegindo harbour would be ideal for
the trailer sailor wishing to launch by slipway. It is easily
accessible by road and there is adequate parking for car and
trailer. The only slight problem seemed to be that the harbour
master does not speak English. However, we managed enough
communication using sign language and pigeon German. New showers
and toilets indicated that Jegindo Havn is bound to become more
popular.

A two hour sail took us to our final island, Veno. We arrived at
lunchtime and there was plenty of time to walk up to the north of
the 4 mile long island to see the nature sanctuary, returning via
the sandy beach. Veno is the proud possessor of the smallest
church in Denmark. Built in 1550 it makes an interesting place to
visit. The Veno Kro restaurant near the harbour offers good food
in an old inn atmosphere. Our conversation with the harbour
master was conducted using paper and pencil so as to get over the
language problem. We were able to explain with drawings much
about our holiday even though neither of us spoke the other's
language. The harbourmaster was a very friendly person and we
later gathered that he had hardly left the island in his whole
life.

A short but exhilarating sail back to Struer on the jib alone
gave us plenty of time to prepare the car and trailer for the
homeward trail. We always find this is always a sad time as we
realise that there is so much that has been missed. Of the 27
harbours in the whole of the Limfjord we had visited 9 of them
and in the sailing area covered by Tiger Lily we had left 6
unvisited. There was a lot more to see, but with no more time, we
consoled ourselves with another meal at the Struer 'Marina Club'
restaurant. It was interesting to think about those yachts which
only use the Limfjord as a quick access route to the Baltic and
how much more they must miss. To add to our contentment we spent
and hour or two watching the evening dinghy racing.

Starting early next morning we motored the short distance to the
commercial dock and moored next to the grain silo. We lowered the
mast, gathered the car and trailer onto the quay and waited for
the mobile crane. This arrived promptly at 9am and within 10
minutes Tiger Lily was resting safely on the trailer. After
driving her round to the quay opposite the harbour master's
office where water is available we spent the next half hour
scrubbing the hull - this is the worst part of trailer sailing as
the chore always comes at the end of the cruise. A final visit to
the showers to freshen up, a farewell to the harbour master, a
last look at the Limfjord and then we set off through the railway
arch which separates the town from the harbour. The first 75
miles are on good single carriageway roads and then at Vejle, the
motorway begins. Six hundred miles and 36 hours later it was time
to rest before catching the 6am ferry from Ostende. Tiger Lily
arrived home exactly 15 days after leaving and having spent 11 of
those days afloat in Danish waters; the plan had been
accomplished.

One of the best things about cruising in the Limfjord is the
absence of tides, it is very pleasant not having to plan the
day's sail using a tide-table. We found that all the harbours
provided water, showers, toilets and provisions. Our marina fees
were about œ4 per night, compared with œ10 or œ12 per night in
the Solent. On examining the expense sheet we found that the
overall costs were very similar to our previous year in
Friesland. We were surprised to see that we spent less on food in
Denmark than in Friesland. The only item with a major increase
was car petrol but this was to be expected because of the
increased mileage. Our holiday costs worked out as œ149 per
person plus œ475 for Tiger Lily's expenses.

Yachtsmen, cruising in foreign waters often face the problem of
obtaining good weather information. We found that we could just
receive the BBC shipping forecast on 198 Khz and so we used the
sea area forecast for Fisher. 'BBC for Europe' provided a general
land forecast for northern Europe on 648 Khz at 7:59 local time.
Another source was Danish Radio which broadcasts the news and
weather in English at 8:10am on 90.2 MHz and 243 KHz. However,
this station did forecast a dry and sunny day which turned out be
cloudy and windy. Some of the harbourmasters provided printed
weather information. Another technique we used was to record the
Danish language weather forecast, broadcast at 6:50am on a small
tape recorder and then play it back repeatedly until we could
decode it using a phrase book. If we failed to do this, then a
friendly local Dane could often be found to offer a translation.
In general language was not a problem as many people spoke good
English. Other information was easy to obtain as many of the
larger harbours have their own tourist information office and we
could usually find someone who spoke English.

Our biggest disappointment with the Limfjord was the vast
preponderance of jellyfish. Everywhere we looked on the surface
of the water were jellyfish gently pulsating away. This detracted
from the desire to swim, even though most harbours were
displaying the Blue Flag. However, this was counterbalanced by
the extremely enjoyable Danish pastries obtained fresh every
morning.

The Danish Limfjord exceeded our expectations as a cruising area
for the small boat sailor. Our recommendation to yachtsmen,
wishing to use it as a transit route, is to allow plenty of time
to dawdle and sample the delights of the various harbours.


Alan Murphy