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.

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.