It was a mean-spirited response to the summer of 2024's often very poor weather in Ireland, to console oneself with the thought that it was even worse if you were trying to cruise in Scotland. But in any case, as any regular followers of the Atlantic met charts can confirm, the weather was even worse between Scotland and Iceland. In those higher latitudes, cruising yachts voyaging north or south experienced "a savage season".
Yet both nutrionist/voyager Nick Kats' 39ft steel ketch Teddy from Clifden, and Rhys Walters & Niamh Harte's 11m steel sloop Zora from Kinsale which was completing a four year Atlantic circuit cruise, have recently returned from the north to their home ports, both of them benefitting on their final long passages from the sudden arrival of the "September Summer".
TWO KNOCKDOWNS
We'll return to Zora's significant and accomplished voyage another day. But with Nick Kats and Teddy, it became a matter of "make-do-and-mend, and get home" for 2024. Their northern cruise of 2023 had achieved many Arctic objectives, but as they made to the south in September last year, a severe storm 350 miles southwest of Iceland, with winds recorded ashore above 90 knots, caused the normally well-behaved Teddy to experience two 90 degree-plus knockdowns-max, and she emerged from them with 9ft of the top of the mainmast missing, the main boom broken, and the A-frame bowsprit gone walkabout.
Their nearest reachable port was Grindavik in southwest Iceland. There, the little port town's main line of business is coping with volcanoes, lava flow and earthquakes, thereby leaving little room for any sort of boatyard. And in any case, such a facility might have disappeared under a fresh lava flow by the time the spring of 2024 came around.
The shy friend for those in need – Jon Karlsson of Djupivogur in Teddy's saloon. Photo: Nick Kats
THE SAVIOUR OF DJUPIVOGUR
So Nick made contact with Jon Karlsson, a retired fisherman who has what amounts to boatyard facilities at Djupivogur among the East Fjords. It was on an entirely different area of Iceland's coastline, but Jon helped Nick motor-sail the boat there to leave her safe for the winter, and ready for repairs to be completed in the Spring of 2024 when he returned.
A family business – Jon Karlsson (right) and his grandson Rokkvi splicing the replacement forestay. Photo: Nick Kats
When he went back, Nick found Jon ready to complete the mainmast repair by clearing up and restoring the masthead on a spar which would remain 9ft shorter than originally designed for the rest of the season. Meanwhile another of Djupivogur's many talents, known as Skuli, set to on the work of making a new stainless steel bowsprit which – in addition to carrying Teddy's headsails with greater strength than before - could also do justice as a formidable battering ram, were such required.
Wood is scarce in Iceland, so Skuli crafted the new bowsprit from stainless steel. Photo: Nick Kats
Souvenir of Djupivogur – the local mountain etched by Skuli in the bowsprit cap. Photo: Nick Kats
Bowsprit or battering-ram, it does the business. Photo: Nick Kats
THE CAN-DO PORT
Nick's confidence and enthusiasm were restored during his time in this busy little can-do port, where the local media were finding many stories in a long-distance voyaging severely-impaired-hearing American nutritionist who has made his home in Connemara. And Teddy's skipper meanwhile decided he'd have enough sail power under the short-mast rig to think about returning to East Greenland northabout of Iceland before heading for home.
So he recruited an Arctic-sailing enthusiast, Frank from Austin in Texas, and they departed Djupivogur northwards with the gift of a classic Icelandic jersey knitted for the skipper by Jonina, Jon Karlsson's wife. And then in the Arctic Circle island of Grimsey, they took on a third hand with Wriley Hodge, a post-grad who was on a Thomas J Watson Fellowship to study the migratory pathways of High Latitude seaboards, so his joining of Teddy's crew was a very mutually-beneficial arrangement.
The bird cliffs of Dragey Island off Iceland's north coast take on extra meaning when you're inspecting them with a research ornithologist. Photo: Wriley Hodge
But although Wriley and his new shipmates were to find much of interest as they slowly made their way west along Iceland's North Coast, the only way the overall weather pattern moved in the good-bad scale tended to be in the bad direction, bringing gale force headwinds for any passage to the west, while ice reports were discouraging. So they dropped the Greenland option to make their way south, only to find that - if anything – the weather between Iceland, Scotland and the West of Ireland was the worst of all.
Eldey Island of the grim Great Auk memories is now Gannet Central
ELDEY AND THE EXTINCT GREAT AUK
Nevertheless, once past Reykjaness, Iceland's southwest point, they found enough of a weather window ten miles further south to make a close-to though still boat-bound visit to the very large rock which is Eldey Island, where the very last flightless Great Auk was killed by hunters on July 3rd, 1844. It was probably done with the usual thoughtless cruelty, as this harmless one metre tall creature had not had the time to evolve the highly-developed fear of humans which has helped to preserved its smaller flying cousins.
They were doomed every which way. Unlike the soaring gannets, the flightless great auk was easy prey for human hunters, and could not move quickly enough when a volcano erupted on their rocky island home. From the painting by Walton Ford
With more extremely foul weather in the offing, it was a thoughtful crew that made their way to the Vestmann islands off Iceland's south coast to be positioned for a quick hop to the Faroes when the next weather window arrived, but though they'd made that hop by mid-August, the limitations of Teddy's downsized rig in adverse wind conditions at were becoming increasingly obvious.
FAROES FOUL WEATHER ACCENTUATION
For although being weatherbound in the Faroes may provide a sheltered harbour and some interesting local food, plus "many opportunities to play gin rummy to an increasingly high standard", those steep tide-riven islands are right on the Arctic Convergence. This climatic situation accentuates their experience of any bad weather which happens to be whirling across the North Atlantic, and in those latitudes in August 2024, they were getting that in spades.
Spooky place, spooky weather – there is nowhere quite like the Faroes
MEETING ZORA, REACHING SCOTLAND
However, time there was brightened by meeting the much-travelled Zora from Kinsale and her friendly crew, and gradually they worked their way south through the islands until at Sandur Harbour on Sandoy Island they experienced a brief spell of encouraging sunshine. It was time to make south for Scotland across an ocean of leftover roughness, but there was a hint of improvement in the weather as they took different tracks, with Zora reached Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, while Teddy was to the east, making port at Kinlochbervie on the mainland in order to broaden travel options for crew whose time was running out.
The first real sunshine in weeks. Teddy (left) in the harbour at Sandur on the southerly Faroese island of Sandoy.
This was at the end of August when Scotland's adverse weather was still so extremely bad, and seemingly endless, that Nick found himself reckoning that it might be a good idea to lay up Teddy for the winter at Oban, if he could just manage to get that far. But no sooner had the thought been allowed to take shape than things began to improve, albeit slightly and slowly, and there was very satisfactory achievement when they got to Mallaig with its rail-head, conveniently enabling crewman Frank to begin his return to Texas via Milan, where he'd to help with a retrospective of his late brother's artwork.
Meanwhile his co-crew Wriley Hodge, having joined Teddy primarily as a reserch ornithologist in distant Grimsey on the Arctic Circle, was now so invested in getting the battered little ketch and her remarkable skipper skipper back to Ireland, that he carved out some extra time in the hope that they could reach Tory Island together before he jumped ship.
DIFFERENT PERSPECTIVE ON TORY ISLAND
For many Irish cruising folk, getting anywhere near Atlantic-battered Tory Island off Ireland's northwestern Donegal extremity is quite the achievement. So it tells us much about the scope and scale of Teddy's voyaging that her skipper sees Tory as a handy and hospitable place to begin and end Arctic voyages.
The Stacks or Tors of Tory as seen on a sunlit clifftop walk. Photo: Wriley Hodge
Yet once Tory was within reachable distance, the Atlantic stopped using Teddy as a plaything, and allowed her to return home in the extremely welcome September Summer which so favourably altered all Irish sailors' perceptions of the 2024 season. Thus they savoured the sharp stack rocks of Tory in a warm sunlit clifftop walk, and stopped off at that epitome of the summer cruising anchorage, Inishkea North, where Teddy lay serenely in a westerly breeze which would carry her comfortably home to Clifden, where she is berthed again at the totally-sheltered drying quay.
"September summer". Teddy nearing home at Inishkea North, with Achill Island beyond to the south, and a fair wind for home
It is there she belongs after each high latitude venture, and her skipper closes his 2024 voyaging narrative with an appreciation of this:
"It is good to see again my friends, to share food, wine and laughter, and to see with fresh eyes this stunningly beautiful country"
The home place. Teddy at Clifden Quay in Connemara
