Norwegian Steam: And Still We Wait

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

And Still We Wait

Yacht Path originally scheduled the loading of yachts in Victoria for
shipment to Ensenada for October 22. That is what we naively expected
and signed up for. Since we paid our money, they have slipped the date
nine times. It is now supposed to happen on December 6. They have
also changed ship twice. The original cargo vessel was the BBC Gdansk.
This was replaced by the Da Fu. The current ship is the Beluga
Elegance. Checking the marinetraffic.com and vesseltracker.com web
sites, we were able to observe that neither the Gdansk nor the Da Fu
ever left the far east during the time that either was designated as our
transport vessel. The Beluga Elegance however is listed by
marinetraffic.com as en route from Australia to Kalama, Washington,
which affords us some small measure of confidence.

And so we wait. But the time has not been entirely wasted. I have added shelves
to the galley, to the hanging locker and to the lazarette. I have
installed a salt water tap at the galley sink. I have improved the air
intake to the diesel fuel day-tank and had the carburetor to the diesel
stove rebuilt. I am currently working on a number of rope and sewing
projects. And still we wait.

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Norwegian Steam, the vessel

Norwegian Steam is the name of our 35' sailboat. She was designed by Ted Brewer. About 40 hulls were constructed by Miller Marine on Bainbridge Island, Washington between 1976 and the early 1980s. It is rumored that additional hulls were constructed in eastern Canada. Because many of these boats were completed by owners, there is a very great diversity in the fleet. To learn more about the basic design, you can find information about Ted's Jason design on his web site.

NS was completed by Alan with the help of friends, some of them professionals, over many years. She has been sailing since 2001. She differs from most (perhaps all) other instances of the Jason design in that her mast is 6 feet taller and she is rigged as a racing cutter, with large overlapping staysail. This rig design was inspired by the work of John Illingworth, the great English yacht designer and sailboat racer.

Norwegian Steam, the name

The phrase, Norwegian steam, may originally have been somewhat pejorative. When a vessel was powered by sails or by oars instead of by a steam or diesel engine, it was said to be powered by "Norwegian steam", the implication being that the Norwegians were so poor they could not afford engines for their boats. As time passed, the Norwegians themselves adopted the phrase to indicate a "can-do" attitude or doing whatever it takes to get the job done, even with limited resources or under adverse circumstances.

During the great era of America's Cup racing in J-Class yachts, the term took on a slightly different meaning. Many of the American defender boats had Norwegian crews and thus were said to be powered by Norwegian steam. A website has been dedicated to this bit of history.