Experience: Juku

Yesterday I had a rather spontaneous sea trip after helping some acquaintances out with advertising the ship. The trip itself, which was a neat, almost perfect circle in Tallinn Bay, wasn't anything special enough to make up for a separate blog post, but the ship was.

Neat round

Juku, first built in 1954 as a fishing boat, was almost totally rebuilt into a training vessel between 1976 and 1982. When I stepped on board, it felt as if time had stopped in 1982. Despite serving several purposes ever since, most notably transportation between the center of Tallinn and Aegna island until 2013, little seems to have changed ever since. Juku has three masts and can hold 7 sails, although that hasn't been seen for a long time - I failed to find any pictures. The distinctively noisy machinery isn't very powerful either, so the top speed remains a single digit.

The mandatory bow picture before boarding

Leaving the Pirita harbour

Leaving the Pirita harbour II

Princess Anastasia leaving

The bridge

Captain's cabin. Pardon the visible altering; the original photo was way too dark.

Crew cabin

Machine room. While at sea it was nowhere near as noisy as on the Gann, but apparently the generator alone is still noisy enough to require hearing protection.

Ship Visit: Gann

Yesterday I had the honour to visit MS Gann as she was in Tallinn. Formerly a Hurtigruten ship under the name Narvik, she is now used as a training vessel most of the time. Sometimes she does cruises as well and that's what brought her to Tallinn. A friend and fellow ship blogger Kalle Id arranged the visit and kindly invited me to join.

Our group; From the left: Olli Tuominen, Kalle Id, Timo Selkälä, me, Sami Koski, Jani Nousiainen.

I'll start with the public areas. The ship was built in 1982 and the interior fits the era while looking quite neat and stylish, like a cruise ship should.

Lounge

Same place

À la carte restaurant - Finnmarken

... with quite a clever solution for rough seas.

Buffet restaurant - Sandnes

Old smoking room, now a library.

As a matter of fact, Gann is quite a small ship and since cruising is not her first purpose, there isn't so much to do in terms of entertainment; If I were to cruise on her, I would probably spend most of the time in the library, although I would need to learn some Norwegian before I do so. 

What's a school ship without a classroom...

... or two?

By far the most interesting cruise ship store I have ever seen.

.. and probably will ever see.

... it had everything I'd be looking for though.

An old Hurtigruten ship - or, in fact, any ship sailing in Norwegian waters - ought to have a place especially designed for enjoying the view.

In addition to the public areas, we were also taken to the bridge, machine room and old car decks - all of that just happened to be a first for me. 

Bridge

That nice separate green button looks quite tempting - it's the horn.

Quite the view, huh?

GMDSS equipment - had a brief nostalgic moment there

The old cardeck, now the location of several rooms with various purposes.

Old ramps

Gym; for crew only, obviously.

Machine room control panel

It would be pretty neat to know what all of these do - I'm open for information on that.

I particularly like the colouring here. 

As the sign says, it was very noisy - a few rooms before that one I started regretting I didn't grab ear plugs when I noticed them. A few moments later we were given them anyway, and even with ear plugs it sounded quite loud. I don't want to know what's it like when the ship is at sea.

Builder's plate under the bridge

Builder's plate on the aft part which was added in 1989

Flag

Mandatory funnel picture

Perhaps this illustrates the fact that we were quite lucky to have her here - she's not exactly the type to stop in every city on the way.

As MS Narvik in her Hurtigruten livery

When she became Gann, the red part was simply painted blue. Scars from the past can still be seen.

We all received a badge; mine now decorates my favourite backpack as a nice memory from a very interesting ship.

Sailing Course Summary

About a week ago, starting on the 25th of June to be exact, I took a practical sailing course from Sailing.ee. Last summer I did a pleasure craft operator's course (which I wrote about here) and it included the basics of sailing with a short practice, therefore it felt right to skip the beginners' course and take the advanced course. Although my aims haven't changed and I still wish to drive large and powerful ships in the future, I don't feel it's quite right if I do that without knowing how to get on with a power source as basic as the sail. I'm also happy to know that I've taken sea-related courses two seasons in a row.

Unlike last year's course which was mostly theory, this one was purely practical. Having skipped the beginners' course, I felt quite lost in the beginning of the first day. I volunteered to steer the boat out of the marina because I was feeling quite confident at that. It also meant that I was immediately in charge after we shut down the motor and I had close to no idea what to do. But the more we sailed, the more I recalled and the next day I didn't feel like I had missed anything. 

There was five of us on board, four students and the instructor. The boat was small and the four of us were neatly distributed to different tasks and the instructor was there to keep an eye on us,  give advice and sometimes teach. The cooperation went smoothly and made the course a very pleasant experience.

Our small practice boat

On the first day we sailed quite far out, tacking and revising the basics, and then hoisted the spinnaker to sail back. Jibing with the spinnaker meant that someone had to climb up on the bow of the boat to change the position of the spinnaker pole. Being the daring person I am, it quickly became one of my favourite things to do on board. We had similar plans for the second day as we sailed out even farther, almost out of the Gulf of Tallinn, but then, just as we had lowered the jib sail and started to set up the spinnaker, the wind direction changed 180 degrees and the best we could do was to hoist the jib again and sail back.

Spinnaker

Detaching the spinnaker pole

On the third day things got more exciting as we learned to deal with and maneuver in all wind directions and also practiced maneuvering and docking in Pirita marina. Considering the fact that I was feeling a bit shaky a year ago trying to dock a motorboat, docking under sail was not so bad. In fact, in the end I was feeling quite confident maneuvering under sail in very narrow spaces, which was quite a good feeling. Afterwards we hoisted the spinnaker again to return to the Old City marina. On the fourth and final day we continued trying out different maneuvers and wind directions and then threw a fender in the sea to practice man overboard rescue maneuvers. After several attempts to retrieve the fender, both failed and successful, we hoisted the gennaker and slowly sailed back home, completing the course. 

Tracked the 3rd day

Heeling

Gennaker and the lowered jib

Qualified!

To me the experience was very enjoyable and, most importantly, extremely useful. Although it was not the easiest thing I have ever done, I wish it had lasted longer, because it really feels like it lasted less than a blink of an eye. Despite that I feel like I got enough time to practice, so if someone was to give me a boat and order me to sail, I feel I'd know exactly what to do. In addition to what I've already said, it was a whole new experience for me to sail out of the Old City marina right between the big ships, to ask permission to enter or exit the harbour over the loud noise of the two stroke engine, to suddenly heel 45 degrees and more, to watch other ships coming and going while not too busy myself, and so on. On the last two days the weather was nice and sunny and we used the quiet moments to take photos. 

Princess Anastasia

Waiting for Superstar to enter before we can exit

Finlandia

Princess Anastasia and Finlandia

Waiting for Star to enter before we can follow