Published: 24.07.2026
58 days and 1485 nautical miles alone with the trailer boat around the Bottnian Bay and through the Mälaren.
Two impressive numbers and a special experience.
The boat.
Well, the boat was there and non-negotiable. The damage to the keel (from the last attempt to sail the Bottnian Bay) has been repaired, and we tested the stability of the repair last year in the Baltic Sea off Großenbrode.
The solar panels and the diesel heater provide sufficient electrical power and warmth on the cold days (there were quite a few of those in the first weeks). For one to two people, the boat is ideal for such a journey.
Whether it works well to live together for such a time on the boat would certainly be exciting to try.
The navigation.
Basically, I am a fan of paper nautical charts. And I must admit that I often missed them painfully. However, if you buy the paper nautical charts for the entire Bottnian Bay, it costs nearly 3500,-- €. Aside from that, it also creates quite a large amount of paper that needs to be accommodated on board. The electronic version includes the entire Baltic Sea including Norway for about 260 €. An absolute price advantage. The navigation is also quite comfortable in principle.
However, details are often only displayed at the highest resolution. Recognizing a harbor, the height of a bridge, or power lines is significantly more challenging than with a paper nautical chart.
Admittedly, navigating on paper while simultaneously steering the ship, handling the sails, and keeping an eye on the surroundings becomes nearly impossible in the narrow archipelagos.
From a reliability perspective, the paper nautical chart is unbeatable. Electronics can fail in many ways; no power, cable problems, no GPS signal, software bugs, device malfunctions, etc. Nevertheless, I relied on the electronic nautical chart, and aside from the issues mentioned, I managed very well with it; it didn't fail either.
Me
Essentially, I have no problem being on my own. The challenge of being this way for such a long time intrigued me. Now I know I can stand being alone(!), in a foreign country, not knowing the language and only being able to speak a few broken English phrases.
If both sides want it, good communication is always possible!
But it would be a lie if I said I didn't miss my family and friends.
Therefore, a heartfelt THANK YOU to my girls! Thank you for supporting me in this project and for sacrificing so much time away from me!
Would I do a similar tour again?
Yes, I think I would like to do it again.
But perhaps in a different arrangement.
Not alone the whole time, but having a companion for some parts of the trip. I would very much like to have my wife or one of my daughters with me. Unfortunately, it is too cramped on Schröder for all of us.
Let's see what happens.
So, that's it!
This blog ends here.
In a few hours, my girls are coming, and we will spend 2 weeks with our friends in a vacation home in the Stockholm archipelago, with a dock for Schröder.
I am looking forward to it!
