After a good rest on land, the crew boarded the ship for the next leg. Louise is back on her feet and all except one of the evacuees are well enough to rejoin the ship. Spirits are high thanks to the day on land. As it turns out, it’s just as well they’d had a break, because today there’s hardly any wind. That meant breaking out the oars and rowing. This is the first serious rowing they’ve had to do on the trip and soon everyone was breaking out in a sweat. After the previous cold sailing, most of the crew had made sure they were wearing their thick woollen underwear – not what you want for hard physical labour!
Sea Stallion is equipped with 60 oars, but generally they use less than half of them at one time. This lets the crew take turns and also gives the rowers more space to work in. This morning the ship had the benefit of a current in its favour, but even so they only managed two and a half knots (less then 3 mph). After a couple of hours at the oars, the wind picked up a little. Unfortunately it was in the wrong direction. The captain decided to raise the sails anyway and practice sailing into the wind. The end result isn’t any faster than rowing but it gives the crew valuable practice in handling the sail.
Some of the crew slept on the ship
By the afternoon a light drizzle was back and with the wind against them they only had only managed to make it a bit further up the Norwegian coast. They decided to make camp for the night and hope for better winds to come.
