CONTESSA 32 STORY             

THE INTREPID VIKINGS!
...or how Anna Vader and her partner, Kjetil Slettnes, sailed to the South Pole!!

I received this e-mail ...

Dear Robin,

I don’t know if you remember me, but I wrote to you from Tromsoe, Norway in 2001.

We are a Norwegian couple that for the last two years have been cruising in our Contessa32 “Aegir.  So far we have made it to the Falkland Islands, and are planning to head for the Pacific in a couple of months time.  We were then on the verge of going cruising in our Contessa32, “s/y Aegir”.  I promised to send you some photographs of the boat for the Contessa32 web-page.  Unfortunately, we were horribly busy getting everything ready for the departure, so I never got around to finding, scanning and sending you the pictures. Please accept my apologies.

We have now sailed Aegir down the Norwegian coast, raced her across the North-Sea to Scotland, sailed the Caledonian Canal, Irish Sea and Bay of Biscay to Spain.  From there the trip went down the Portuguese coast, across to Madeira, the Canary Islands and Cape Verdes.  After a quick crossing of the Atlantic (10 days and 10 hours!), we slowly made our way down the coast of Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, until we reached the Falkland Islands exactly a year ago.  We ended up getting stuck here a little longer than intended (it’s a wonderful place for cruising!), but do intend to tear ourselves loose and continue into the Pacific next southern summer.  Through all of this the boat has behaved splendidly, taking good care of us under all kinds of conditions.

But at the moment we have a boat problem that I am hoping you might be able to advice us on.  Lately our fore hatch has developed a leak.  As we will probably face strong headwinds when we sail up the Chilean channels, we desperately want to fix this problem before we continue our journey.  We believe the hatch to be as old as the boat (1976), so have decided that we want a replacement. I don’t know if you personally have any experience in exchanging the forehatch for new one?  If not I have enclosed the following “cry of help” for the web “help desk”:

The reason seems to be a cracked frame. As the hatch is probably the original from 1976, we would like to exchange it for a new one.  Does anybody have a suggestion for a replacement hatch which fits into the space of the old one? (Note - this is now fixed!)

I enclose some pictures of Aegir in the Falklands, in case any of them are of interest for the web site. I seem to remember you asked for pictures of snow, and as you can see we get that here as well.  Actually, we had icicles on the inside of the windows this morning...brrrr.  Quite a contrast to the summer in the UK, I would imagine.

All the best,

 Anna Vader (s/y Aegir)”