Day 74. 24th June 2026
Reading time: Five minutes
Confidence Level: 7/10 A few weather concerns but hey what’s new!
The weather Gods were on our side for this leg, but maybe not being quite so kind for the next one.
We left Ullapool early on Sunday morning with a forecast of reasonably strong southerly winds. With two reefs in the main with the stay sail hoisted we worked our way out of Loch Broom into the Minch. We soon changed up to the Yankee and passed Stoerhead touching 7 knots at times. At mid-day we spotted our first puffin! Fulmars joined us later. Then the wind slowly died away leaving a horible sloppy sea, we changed up to the genoa. By 21:00 we were motoring. All was well until the following morning when I noticed the engine was running hot. I shut it down to find that it needed about a pint of coolant. The engine has never needed that much before. I topped it up and it ran at its usual temperature.
After a couple of hours we rehoisted the genoa and were making 5 knots over a much smoother sea. Early the following morning the wind was building and we changed back down to the Yankee. It was cold and very wet. Eventually we poled out the sail and corkscrewed downwind goosewinged.
At 13:00 on Tuesday we spotted Lille Dimon through the drizzle. The tides in the Faroes are notorious and are explained in graphic detail in the famous blue book. As we approached Torshavn the wind was gusting strongly and a quick reef was needed.
We radioed the harbour to check the entry was clear as the vis was very poor. We entered the harbour on instruments and found a small berth amongst the fishing boats.
We had to wait for the police to check us in. Customs never arrived so after a day we took down the yellow flag.
On Wednesday morning I dismantled the heat exchanger and phoned the ever helpful Beta Marine. They said that a possible cause of the engine needing extra coolant was an airtrap and they explained how to avoid it. I hope I have resolved the issue. Once the tools were put back we went to explore the town.
One find was a boat called Salka Valka which I first met in Barbados in 1996! It was sailed around the world by Dorita Holm and I believe she wrote a book about her adventure. We later met the new owners and had a great chat about the boats colourful history.
We also spotted Nordlys which we helped to crew after sailing into Torshavn in Sumara direct from Spitsbergen, a feet which gained us the nickname of “The Crazy Ones” which I am rather proud of.
Yet another find were the displays of curried herring in the supermarket. Coupled with a magnificently heavy loaf of rye bread we had a lunch fit for kings!
In London everyone is sweltering in a heatwave but there is certainly no heat wave up here. There are even heated seats outside the cafes!
On Thursday we walked over the hills to the old village of Kirkjubøur.
We cheated by gettng the bus most of the way back, but that gave us the time to lug around another 20L of diesel and to treat ourselves to a fine beer in the local craft ale bar.
Friday is Torsten’s last day so we visited the nearby island of Nolsoy.
In the afternoon I will need to achieve a long list of tasks before Jo and Grit arrive. They are the crew for the next exciting leg to Iceland.
There is a music festival in the harbour on Saturday so I suspect we will have a very late night. The last band are onstage at 02:00 – gulp. On Sunday we will plot the next leg of the grand adventure. Perhaps we will leave very early on Tuesday, but the forecast is ever changing.
Next blog post will be from Iceland.
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