This time we decided to sail her back home via the North Sea and not the “staande mast route”. We chose probably the worse year to do that ahha hahh 😉 Lot of sun, but wrong wind! We left when the wind was strong N-NW for 4 weeks in a raw! We decided to sail from Breskens to Scheveningen, and then to Ijmuiden. But this meant wind against the entire route, with large waves as this wind direction causes the worst waves along the Dutch coast line. We left in a week-end at the end of May from Sint Annaland, and reached Vlissingen from the Westerschelde at about 13:00. We said: let us take a look at how it looks outside the Oostgaat and see if we feel like beating against the waves till Scheveningen. But when we were quite far out the Oostgaat we deicided to head back to Breskens as it was becoming late, cold and the wind was gusting to 30-33 knots. NOT fun when motor-sailing completely against the wind. You can see a video on our Instagram. Beautiful sunset, and Elsa could handle it very well. But the crew of 2 was getting tired and therefore we decided to postpone the trip to the week-end after.
The following week-end the wind direction did not change, and the 1st day was still blowing quite strong. We left Breskens early, so in the beginning the wind was not too strong (18-20 knots) and we tacked a few times, so that we also sailed a bit. When we reached Hoek van Holland (entrance of Rotterdam harbor) the wind was 28 knots in the gusts (base wind 23 knots) and the waves a real “washing machine”. We still had the main sail fully open. Passed Hoek van Holland we took it down and motored to Scheveningen. Luckily the weather had been sunny all day, and we saw 4 seal and a “bruinvis” 🙂 <3
We left Elsa in Scheveningen for 1 week, during which we slept at the Elsa – a short ride from Leiden where we work to the Scheveningen harbor 🙂 Weather remained cold but sunny.
The week-end after the N-wind turned very slightly NW so we managed to sail (finally no motor!) to Ijmuiden. And from Ijmuiden we brought her back “home” via Haarlem along the “staande mast route” during the 1st really warm day of 2023 🙂 – around the 17th of June.
