Stop in Fredrikstad

Oh, what a challenge this was... I arrived at Fredrikstad's "West River" at 4 am after some swell single-handed sailing in pretty nifty winds through a pretty rocky archipelago.

The rules say that one has to call the bridge guys well in advance if you want them to open the bridge for you in order to "sail" into the city center and "brygga". So I called at 7 am, to get through at 9 am. At 9.05 I called again...just to be informed that the West River bridge is not working since a few weeks back...What?

Ok, so if I am fast and have good winds I will manage to sail around Kråkerøy in 3-4 hours...and enter from East River through that bridge at 1 pm instead. The presentation meeting starts at 2 pm so hey, what's there to be nervous about? Well, the battery capacity was one thing and the wind getting lazy was another one...

The battery dropped from 96% to 64% just to get us out of the narrow part of the West River and into sailing waters. Then the wind faded out... but we happily slipped past the open bridge at 1 pm, with just a few minutes margin. Our faces were saved.

CHARGING BY CURRENT

The current was not that strong this day, and by the edges of the canal it was of course less powerful, so the symbolic charging test in the river of Glomma was a bit far-fetched. But a short presentation of the boat, engine, and project was made at Paa Brygga and some of the young visitors were invited to not only check the boat but also to climb the mast...

Made it up the river – if it was wilder, meaning the speed was more than 4 knots, it would theoretically be possible to charge the batteries...

Like an amusement park...