An Exacting Voyage On The Kiel Canal
Early in the morning on a rising tide, we slipped out of Vlieland harbor - two hours after low water, and headed around the north side of the Frisian Islands into the North Sea. We’d decided sailing outside of the chain of islands, without the shoals and narrow channels of the Wadden Sea, would be more a relaxing route. We pointed our nose east and followed the chain into the German Frisian Islands. The morning was sunny and the water calm, though we knew this was soon to change. Acting upon yet another tip shared by a local sailor, we ducked into a harbor on the island of Norderney where there were as many Dutch boaters as there were German.
We headed to mainland Germany, again traveling on the North Sea side of the islands. I was feeling ill equipped cruising without a pilot guide for local waters. Staying outside of the shallows of the Wadden Sea meant slightly rougher water but it also meant I was less apprehensive while at the helm.
Cruising through a wind farm
We arrived in Cuxhaven, situated on the mouth of the River Elbe on the North Sea coast of Germany. We tied up for the night knowing it was going to be a long one. The wind was building and our goal was to be safely inside the Kiel Canal before the storm broke. But we had lots of research to do about the river and the canal first. Once again, finding the information we wanted, in english, proved difficult. We wrote down the tides and currents in the river, estimated the duration of our transit, tried to anticipate potential delays and determine the best timing for our departure. The logistics were mind boggling. I found a blog that someone had written a couple of years ago which included some ‘mostly’ up-to-date information that was also helpful. We paid our canal fee online and printed out the signal lights and VHF channels to monitor for the locks (which turned out to be incorrect). We had pieced together bits of data here and there and had created as clear a picture as we could. We were going to need to leave early the next day.
Navigating the Elbe River was challenging - no, actually it was quite stressful! It is quite narrow with lots of current and a very small gap between the edge of the main river and the channel. Tons of traffic: cargo ships, tankers, ferries, fishing boats, yachts and pleasure craft of all sizes, moving in every possible direction all at once.
We followed a sailboat upstream as far as we could, hugging the right bank outside of the channel. But we needed to cross the shipping lanes to reach Brunsbüttel and the entrance to the canal. The water was super choppy, the current flowing hard, and the traffic was incessant. Tom, white knuckled, managed to hold the boat steady on the south bank for what seemed like forever. I went outside to try to judge how fast everything was moving from both ahead and behind us in order to find a window to cross (there were far too many boats to calculate each of their transit times). At some point Tom decided we needed to just go for it and we wove our way between the passing ships to the other side. Once there, we again needed to hold steady in the fast current of the deep riverbed while we waited for the signal lights indicating we could enter the lock.
Other pleasure boats began to gather around us, all of us idling in the churning water. A large commercial ship entered the lock and finally the lights signaled it was our turn, the other yachts following us in. Although I’d prepared the lines and fenders in advance, this lock was unlike any other I’d ever seen before. There were no bollards to tie onto, there were actually no walls within reach. Instead, there was a wide, floating timber platform with an inset grate and rings bolted through it. I surmised that I needed to jump off the boat onto the timbers with both lines and tie the bow and stern each to it’s own ring. As I ran forward and then aft on the floating platform trying to secure us I noticed that our fenders were laying on top of the timbers - providing no protection whatsoever to Meraki’s hull. I would need to muscle them into place somehow.
We managed to get through the lock, both of us frustrated and snarling at how poorly we’d executed it and how ridiculously difficult this one is for pleasure boats. We had only exited the lock by a few minutes when the sky opened and a squall hit. At least we weren’t still in the raging river and, thankfully I’d not had to wrestle the lines in the torrent.
The Kiel Canal is 98 kilometers long and links the North Sea to the Baltic Sea. It is broad, fairly straight and wooded on both sides. Around 32,000 vessels pass through it every year though today it was quiet, we had only half a dozen ships pass us – mostly in the opposite direction.
Several hours later we passed the Rendsburg’s High Bridge, known as the Schwebefähre, which means transporter bridge. Hanging below the railway bridge are four 35-meter long (115’) cables which hold the 14x6 meter (46’x20’) swinging ferry to a carriage. This carriage allows 4 cars and 100 pedestrians to be carried across the wide canal in just 1.5 minutes! It is one of the last remaining railway viaducts in the world that is equipped with a transporter ferry, and like all ferries across the canal, the crossing is free of charge.
We turned off the canal at the 66km marker into the Obereidersee (Lake Obereider) hoping to find a place to wait out the storm. Our first choice marina was completely full when we arrived so we continued on. Our next option was at the head of the lake. We’d read a review that said “has a harbormaster that is ready to rip your heart out and eat it raw”, nevertheless we thought we’d see for ourselves. We motored up to take a look but neither of us was feeling comfortable with the rundown infrastructure and the already overcrowded berths. We turned around, heading back out when we noticed a small harbor with a handful of moorings off to one side. We puttered in to check it out. There were a couple of available box moorings but they looked quite narrow. It was pouring, it had been a stressful day, we were tired and running out of options so we decided to give it a go.
Baltic style moorings, or box moorings, are my least favorite way to tie up. The idea is to secure your boat with one end tied to a dock and the other end secured to two posts or pilings. We have learned, the hard way I might add, that the key to box berthing is getting the windward bow or stern line onto the post as you motor past. Unlike most sailboats however, we cannot easily disembark Meraki from the bow so we have to back-in between the posts.
The orientation of Meraki in a box mooring.
To perform this maneuver I stand where Meraki is wider - close to amidships, with a line trailing from the upwind bow. Then as Tom backs the boat in, I toss the line over the post, quickly move forward to cleat it off before picking up the line on the downwind side to capture the other post before it’s beyond my reach. Then I move aft and attach our stern lines to the dock. It seems fairly straight forward but we’ve yet to find one that was easy.
I have observed many other boaters perform this task and have picked up some useful, and not so useful, tips. Some folks choose an empty box with a boat alongside to leeward and just charge in bow first, and let their boat settle against the neighbor boat before adjusting their lines. Others drop a ring over the posts as they nose in rather than use a bight - a doubled line, which is what I prefer to do, though I have tried both. The biggest issue we face is that most sail boats here seem to be no more than 3.5 meters wide and the box moorings are designed for them with posts that average about 4.5 meters apart.
Meraki is 4.24 meters wide, quite nearly too wide to squeeze through in the best of conditions, and while the Swedish and Dutch built boats seem to all have rubbing strakes on their sides, we do not. If we have even the slightest cross-breeze there is literally no way I can keep Meraki off the posts as we back in. Even with my lines prepped and right where I need them to be, we still have not managed one of these moorings efficiently. I have made every mistake possible. The first time we tried it I made the mistake of hanging the fenders over the side before backing in, as I do with all other moorings, only to discover we don’t fit between the pilings that way. I ended up racing up and down the side decks trying unsuccessfully to flip each one out of the way as we went past. Another time I tossed a bight over the upwind post but in my haste, cleated it off too short and I couldn’t reach the cleats on the dock behind us when we got all the way in. I’ve also done the reverse, leaving the bow lines too long which meant the wind blew us onto the downwind piling as I was cleating off the stern lines. And while I am wrestling with all of this, it is actually Tom who has the harder job, trying to back between two narrowly spaced pilings - with an extra 5” (12 cm) to spare on either side if we’re lucky, often in the wind, and without eyes behind him on the dock we’re moving towards. Needless to say, box moorings make us both anxious and irritable.
The wind was howling and the rain was intense as we squeezed into the mooring at Lake Obereider. Despite the gale and the downpour, just as our stern cleared the pilings, an elderly man and his wife appeared from another boat ready to catch our lines. I could have kissed them! They spoke no english but we all knew what needed to happen. Meraki’s stainless rub-rail slid down the smooth posts as we pinched our way in. We thanked the folks on the dock, shut off the engines, and breathed a sigh of relief.
The storm raged for three more days. There was no one around besides the folks who had caught our lines. We found what looked like the marina office where a phone number was posted, so I texted to inquire how to pay for our berth. We were instructed to leave cash in a plastic bag at the clubhouse.
One afternoon the rain let up a bit and we took a walk, discovering that the marina was at the end of a wooded footpath which lead to a small road on the outskirts of town. We walked into Rendsburg in the drizzle, an unassuming but attractive town, and then out to the end of the lake, before returning home snug in our secret little hidden harbor.
The weather finally turned and we scraped our way out of our mooring box, waved goodbye to our neighbors and headed back into the canal. This time there was quite a bit of traffic, both passing us and overtaking us. We followed a large freighter for several hours until it came to a standstill in a siding. As pleasure boats are not permitted to pass commercial ships, we slowed to a stop as well. A disabled ship then arrived behind us piloted by two tugs; one forward and one aft. They too stopped and idled. We floated in the current for 15-20 minutes while waiting for an oncoming ship to pass before everyone began moving again.
We arrived at the Holtenau exit lock near the town of Kiel just before noon, and tied up to the waiting dock behind another small power boat. A sailboat arrived and rafted up onto it. A few minutes later another sailboat arrived, all four of us waiting our turn for the lock. The ships we’d been following all morning also waited, idling in the channel for the lock to empty so they could proceed. We fixed lunch and Tom and I planned how we would improve our methodology given we wanted to avoid another experience like the lock at Brunsbüttel. The signal lights finally changed and the larger ships entered the chamber. The disabled vessel was towed and pushed into position next, behind the other two ships. Eventually the pleasure crafts were hailed on the radio and instructed to secure on the port side - opposite to standard protocol and to what we’d planned for. The other three boats on the waiting dock raced ahead, Meraki bringing up the rear. I rethought my original plan which wouldn’t work on our port side where Tom could not reach a mid-ships line from the helm.
I readied the fenders on port and moved my lock lines, flaking them out where I could reach them from the platform. When we were close enough, I jumped off with the stern line in hand and had just fed it through the ring in the platform when out of nowhere another sailboat appeared behind us in the lock, apparently it had slipped in through the gates as they were closing. We thought we were the last boat to enter so we had left some room between us and the sailboat in front of us - but now we needed to move further ahead to make space for them. I ran back to release the stern line and Tom motored forward, at the same instant the errant sailboat behind us erratically tried to speed ahead of us inside the lock?! Realizing there was no space for them ahead, they threw their engine into reverse nearly ramming into us and missing our aft corner by mere inches. They were now barreling backwards and their transom careened up and on top of the platform! My jaw dropped in total disbelief. It was utter mayhem. I raced forward to secure our bow line, kicked our fenders into position as best I could, tied off the stern line and jumped back aboard afraid of what insanity might happen next. Both sailors jumped onto the platform and pushed their boat back into the water and then tied themselves off. I did not see a gaping hole in their hull nor did they appear to be taking on water so I assumed they were safe.
Their recklessness left me feeling rattled and annoyed, and Tom was feeling outright angry. We were completely bewildered by what we’d just witnessed. I think we both held our breath the entire time the lock filled before we could finally exit, moving quickly out of the way of the unpredictable sailors behind us. We motored out of the traffic straight away, planning to moor at a visitors dock in a small inlet next to the lock.
It had been a super stressful day and we were ready to be done with it. But this simple act of tying up also turned out to be exasperating. Huge pilings protruded on the outside of the dock and it took a bunch of scrambling around to find and attach additional line with which to reposition our fenders horizontally so that we could sit comfortably against the pilings. It was easily over an hour before we settled in, opened a bottle of wine and relaxed.
Some adventures aren’t what you’d hoped they would be. This blitzkrieg through Germany was one of those - but we’ll be back in the Fall to try again. For now, it’s on to Denmark tomorrow and with any luck it will be a better day.
Note: photo captions will not appear if viewing on a cell phone.