Sweden Revisited

I hadn't been in Sweden since 2005 and can't really explain why I left it so long, since it has to be my favourite country. Perhaps it's because the last time I returned with a restoration project, and you can't cope with too many of those, see An Expedition to Stockholm

Seriously though, finding Juni was a truly good thing, which got me interested in Swedish designs and designers. Coincidentally Juni is on the point of leaving for a new home, in good hands to be looked after by someone with much greater skills than I have.

I was very sad to learn that Sonja Herlin had passed away in July, just ten days short of her 102nd birthday. I had been indirectly in contact with her from time to time through my Swedish friends at the Herlin Society, but had never met her. I think she was pleased that I had rescued Juni and I'd love to have heard about her exploits in her.

Sonja had enjoyed an incredibly full and interesting life and stayed very competent mentally to the end. There's a nice video of her sailing one of her father's creations here: Sonja sailing, aged 93

Isn't that the nicest wee cruising boat of your dreams? Tore Herlin was a genius.

We were picked up by my old friend Petter, who immediately plunged us into boat porn.

Then into town, where I had to meet up with Evert Taube, possessor of a unique singing voice and style to match, a saint to Swedes and of course inspiration to ABBA.

Stockholm is as interesting and lovely as always, a great example of a well run Northern European country that should be an inspiration to all of us Scots. The monarchy has been turned into rather a nice tourist attraction without too much baggage and just enough theatre.

At night the city, especially the old Gamla Stan, where we were lucky to be staying, is full of life and interest.

Further afield the city lights are magic on the water.

Great use is made of the water for urban transport via countless ferries.

Here's Petter and me in 2005,

And here we are, with Birgitta and Paul in 2019,

back at our favourite Pelikan. Hope to get back before long.

Top Secret - Bilderglug Fleet Summer Manoeuvre imminent

Hidden at a private spot in the middle of wildest Argyll plans were made for the Summer Fleet exercise. The meeting done the plans were memorised and eaten. It was a still morning and the nutshells sat on water like glass.

Juni rode to the gentle tide.

With the promise of land breezes later plans were made for an interim excursion to Right Island and a few hours later the fleet converged on North Bay. 

Iain Oughtred Whilly boat Bonny

Richard Pierce excursion skiff Sciurus

Lune Whammell Hede and Tore Herlin's Juni

Bonny heads for Luing

Hede sets off, in the tent on the right lives Mike, the island's leader

Sciurus off to Torsa 

On Radio Scotland with Susan Calman

I had to be sailing and was told not to cheat, so found myself out on the water hunting for a good signal on the mobile, wind increasing, ready for the call, which came at exactly 10.45. Without an extra pair of hands it was quite challenging. With apologies for the sound quality here is the result:-  Radio Scotland clip on Youtube

Tore Herlin's Juni

Tore Herlin is not as well known in this country as two of his creations, the tall ships Gladan and Falken. While chief architect to the Swedish Navy he enjoyed a parallel career as a designer of yachts and small boats inspired in large part by his wish to encourage sail training at all levels. The little yacht Juni, which I found in Stockholm in 2005 and brought back for restoration, is a “Pojkbat” or young persons boat intended for this purpose. 

The original Juni was built about 1935 and resembled the Swedish Starboat, a design that was adopted here with the addition of a counter for the Loch Long. She proved to be very fast and seaworthy for her size with the result that numerous copies followed, some in carvel mahogany and some clinker planked in oak. They were taken up by boat-building schools as a conveniently small project, so that the design was used to teach building skills, resulting in a boat which teaches sailing. My Juni was built in 1973 to the order of Sonja Herlin, Tore’s daughter, to replace the original boat after she was destroyed in a fire.

I didn’t know all this when I first saw Juni looking rather dejected in a garden in Dalaro. It was obvious that she needed a lot of work, but the quality of her original build shone through, crying out for restoration.

The story of her return to Scotland is told in one of the earliest posts here. Only once she was safely here in Argyll was it possible to remove the furniture and floorboards to get a proper look at what needed to be done. This also gave me a proper understanding of the quality of the work done by the Storrebro School. The hull is of close-seam construction, that is to say there is no caulking or stopping between the planks. She has swept decks in teak, also a masterwork in small scale. Varnished mahogany topsides meant that any mistakes would be highly visible. The project was going to be more challenging than one on a larger scale.

Any restoration will take a lot of time and throw up problems that have not been met with before. A good way to proceed is to start with the routine but time-consuming jobs, removing old paint and varnish and so on, while researching the more difficult and novel tasks. The former work will have to be done anyway and the time involved mindlessly scraping and sanding gives one plenty of time to think and plan.

I won’t bore the reader with all the details of what was done. The topsides, spars and internal furniture were all stripped down, to be refinished with oil and traditional varnish, the work producing plenty of thinking time. The difficult work involved dealing with two major structural cracks in the hull planking, combined with numerous associated broken frames. I was a bit worried in case this damage had occurred through normal sailing but it seemed more likely to have happened on shore, as Swedish clubs usually operate their own storage facilities and accidents do happen. Subsequently some discreet enquiries suggested that this was probably the cause, which was reassuring.

Juni was relaunched in June 2013 and there followed a couple of weeks of anxious pumping while she took up after about ten years ashore. She has proved to be a lively little seaboat, behaving in some ways like a much larger yacht but also very fast and responsive. She’ll be ideal for day-sailing around the sheltered sea-lochs of mid-Argyll.

The above is from the 2013 RHYC Journal, for those who aren't members.

Tore Herlin and the Juni boats

Tore Herlin is not as well known in this country as two of his creations, the tall ships Gladan and Falken. While chief architect to the Swedish Navy he enjoyed a parallel career as a designer of yachts and small boats inspired in large part by his wish to encourage sail training at all levels. The little yacht Juni, which I found in Stockholm in 2005 and brought back for restoration, is a "Pojkbat" or young persons boat intended for this purpose. 

The original Juni was built about 1935 and resembled the Swedish Starboat, a design that was adopted here with the addition of a counter for the Loch Long. She proved to be very fast and seaworthy for her size with the result that numerous copies followed, some in carvel mahogany and some clinker planked in oak. They were taken up by boat-building schools as a conveniently small project, so that the design was used to teach building skills, resulting in a boat which teaches sailing. My Juni was built in 1973 to the order of Sonja Herlin, Tore's daughter, to replace the original boat after she was destroyed in a fire.

I didn't know all this when I first saw Juni looking rather dejected in a garden in Dalaro. It was obvious that she needed a lot of work, but the quality of her original build shone through, crying out for restoration.

The story of her return to Scotland is one of the first posts on this blog and can be read here An Expedition to Stockholm. Only once she was safely here in Argyll was it possible to remove the furniture and floorboards to get a proper look at what needed to be done. This also gave me a proper understanding of the quality of the work done by the Storrebro School. The hull is of close-seam construction, that is to say there is no caulking or stopping between the planks. She has swept decks in teak, also a masterwork in small scale. Varnished mahogany topsides meant that any mistakes would be highly visible. The project was going to be more challenging than one on a larger scale.

Any restoration will take a lot of time and throw up problems that have not been met with before. A good way to proceed is to start with the routine but time-consuming jobs, removing old paint and varnish and so on, while researching the more difficult and novel tasks. The former work will have to be done anyway and the time involved mindlessly scraping and sanding gives one plenty of time to think and plan.

I won't bore the reader with all the details of what was done. The topsides, spars and internal furniture were all stripped down, to be refinished with oil and traditional varnish, the work producing plenty of thinking time. The difficult work involved dealing with two major structural cracks in the hull planking, combined with numerous associated broken frames. I was a bit worried in case this damage had occurred through normal sailing but it seemed more likely to have happened on shore, as Swedish clubs usually operate their own storage facilities and accidents do happen. Subsequently some discreet enquiries suggested that this was probably the cause, which was reassuring.

spot the eight replacement frame pieces

Juni was relaunched in June 2012 and there followed a couple of weeks of anxious pumping while she took up after about ten years ashore. She has proved to be a lively little seaboat, behaving in some ways like a much larger yacht but also very fast and responsive. She'll be ideal for day-sailing around the sheltered sea-lochs of mid-Argyll.

Surrinduppity

Juni is a masterwork of Swedish boat carpentry, her hull planked close-seam from a hard close-grained mahogany, no caulking, no splines and, I suspect no glue either. This has its problems in a little ship that’s forty years old and has obviously been through a few escapades.

Doing the repairs was rather nerve-wracking, as I am no cabinet-maker. There were some strategic decisions to be made, as I wanted to respect the skills with which the boat had been made while ending up with a seaworthy, useable vessel. That the construction was so fine ruled out some of the more robust approaches which would have guaranteed keeping the water out. Among other things I’ve had to fix some nasty splits in a few of her bottom planks, clinkering between some of the others and quite a few broken timbers, all as unobtrusively as possible.

As a result of this approach it was no surprise, just a bit upsetting, to find Juni weeping rather badly on being returned to her element after about ten years ashore, the last seven inside a shed.

This is where the surrinduppity (I’ve adopted the Brother’s spelling) comes in. If we were dealing with an old loch boat, her boat-skin planked in good Scottish larch, we’d just secure her with some stones and leave her sunk for a few days. With a close-planked hull of fine hardwood and a ballast keel this is not a good idea. The ideal would be a nice soft mud-berth, but Argyll isn’t Essex and the shores here are sharp and rocky.

Salvation was found literally round the corner from where we launched, at the Melfort Pier, a luxury holiday complex whose houses circle a calm private dock and whose owners love boats, or at least lovely little ones like Juni. Under one of the houses we found the ideal sick bay, a secluded berth just wide enough and with fixing points for the long diagonal warps that are necessary to cope with the rise and fall of the tide.

For the first couple of days I was pumping every six hours or so, but six days after launching things are getting better. I’m down to pumping every twelve hours and it will be interesting to see if and when there is any further improvement, or if she has to come out again for further treatment. That the hull is from a hard, close-grained timber is not helping, nor is the fact that she is now so well protected by all the paint I have put on, so I’m living in hope. 

Just about afloat at last

The last week has seen Juni out of her workshed and along to our friends’ slipway where she was returned to her element after about ten years ashore. Predictably a lot of water came in and I’ve been pumping her every few hours, but this morning’s session at 5.30am suggested the inflow is going down a little. The following pictures tell the story better than words.

blinking in the daylight

very tight fit on flatbed

nearly ready to go

tricky slip with dogleg

the launching team, combined age (minus wagon) just over 200

Post No 100, time for a party

There are now 100 posts here, ranging from short demented jottings to my attempts to record some serious bits of boating and yachting history, anecdotes and other stuff that shouldn't be allowed to disappear. I'm going to have a wee party, with some nice  lemonade and orange biscuits straight from the stove, in tune with the music from newly health-conscious Scotland (update - the recipe can be found below among the comments).

For anyone who started visiting here recently I should point out that most of my efforts are not time-specific and some of the more useful historical pieces appear early on, such as the Juni expedition and the story of the Ralli II, although I've also recorded events that seemed significant as they occurred, such as the stranding of the HMS Astute, surely now one of the most unlucky and certainly the most inappropriately named ship in the Royal Navy of all time (astute- shrewd, sagacious, wily). Personally I hate these things and think that the World would be a better place if they all got stuck, but preferably not in the Kyles. As for aircraft carriers with or without planes for them, don't start me.

Thinking about names reminds me of my late dear friend John Gardner explaining the origin of La Belle Poule. Apparently there was a tradition in the French navy to allow the commander of a new ship to supply her name and in this case he had provided "La Belle Pauline" after his wife, but something went wrong with Admiralty communications and the result had rather a special meaning around the coastal towns.

John Gardner has inspired a lot of what I've posted here and his images have resulted in numerous hits. I intend to do what I can to keep his memory alive and share his images. Being of a generous disposition his family do not seek compensation for the non-commercial use of his images, but if anyone who appreciates his work would like to send me a message I'll pass it on.

Blogging is an odd activity, which of course no-one had heard of until recently. Indeed I remember when I got the first computer in my office back in 1985, a huge ugly expensive box of tricks installed by so-called experts, but who in a previous incarnation would have sold second-hand cars or insurance policies. My old secretary was sure that the lines of gaudy green text glaring out at her like messages from Outer Space would affect her fertility (she was then about fifty and unmarried) so she turned the screen towards the window and continued touch-typing as before, with interesting results. I never imagined for an instant that we were seeing the start of perhaps the greatest development in letters since 1450.

Herr Gutenberg

Scottishboating started as a spin-off from my scottishislandsclass blog, which in turn was started to record the history of those lovely yachts with the general intention to produce a book in due course, which is still an ambition. It's grown to produce a nice little cyber-community with 35 followers and about 41,000 page views to date. I'm sufficiently realistic to understand that most of them probably come here by mistake, but there's a good solid nucleus of readers who sometimes email me with information, occasional guest posts or just encouragement, so I'll keep going.

better with a little dark chocolate

Now I'm off to the party. Cheers!