Launch of an unusual season - the (1st) COVID-19 season

Vinter - spring 2020 Orkanger

Initially I would like to apologies for not posting anything during 2019 and being very behind in posting this year. I have no other defence for this than being hit by an acute, and long-lasting, case of laziness.  I will try to better myself and get more up do date in my posting. For this post I'm also sorry for a long text with few pictures.

As earlier years I made a rough sketch of a plan for this season. Mainly using the collected overtime hours during the week in between Ascension and Pentecost and  the holidays themselves to position the boat. Thus I would be able to roam further north than I would on a normal four week summer holiday.

But then a global pandemic came and any plans was no longer valid. Norway introduced the harshest restrictions ever imposed in peace time on ordinary people.  

In the first weeks of the pandemic several municipalities in the northern part of Norway, with a low infection rate imposed a travel ban, even on domestic travellers from more infected regions. The boat was on the hard in one of these municipalities and I'm living in the "high" risk region. With the launch date approaching and the ban still being in effect I became afraid that I wouldn't be able to launch with the other boats. And since renting a large enough crane would be to costly, I feared that the entire season would be a no go. 

I had several discussions with my parents (who I stay at during retrieving, spring preparation and launching) and some others with their boat on the hard. In the end I decided that I could interpret the opening working after a 14 day quarantine was valid even for no so professional me. So on Easter Saturday (one week before launch day) i packed everything I needed in to my car and drove the 500 km northwards. Actually the travel ban was lifted on easter Saturday, but the municipality somehow elected not to publish that rule change until much later. 

Thus things was mostly solved launch, besides all spring preparation that I would have to compress into a short week whilst still working full hours in the home office (well childhood bedroom office). I thought it would be feasible to finish everything below the waterline, but polishing the hull would have had to wait until after launch. The weather forecasted for the week wasn't exactly inviting to outside work, snow or sleet, strong northerly winds and temperatures around freezing. On easter sunday a northerly storm passed that made a lot of damages in the marina most other boats that was to be launched together with me moors. Thus the launching had to be postponed to give time to repair the marina.  With the extra time I was able to stay inside during the bad weather and still being able to do most preparations for launch, even polishing the hull. Weather in the additional week even got quite pleasant, almost to wearing short sleeves pleasant. And in the protective gear I wore during antifouling it became quite sweaty. And I felt even more for the health professionals that due to the virus must wear similar looking, but probably much warmer protection every day.

With adequate weather and time preparations went smoothly. And since I stayed at my parents I came home to prepared meals. 

On friday before launch the big mobile crane that would hoist the boats was assembled. Without knowing much about cranes I believe that the need of assembly is that the crane with counterweights mounted is fast too heavy for ordinary roads.

The launch went flawlessly but I suspect that on occasions social distancing rules was broken. It is difficult to do a two man unhook slings job whilst standing 2 meters apart. 

After the boat was back in its element and most of the other boats had left for their nomad docks us that stayed behind was greeted with a rainbow portal for the season. 

This being written towards the end of the season I thought a should say something about how the COVID-19 restrictions affected the rest of the season (until now, september 6th) . For the large picture such as where and when I sailed there was no negative effect, but rather a positive as result of being allowed to bring the office to the boat and thus being able to do some one directional afternoon sailing in workweeks and thus being able to tavel further than I would have been able to do only using holidays and weekends.

Since the instagram account @syrulten has several non Norwegian speaking followers I thought that some of them might be interested  in the blog, thus I will try writing this and later posts in english.