
Jens to the rescue
- Beth Solomon
- Jul 14
- 4 min read
The sun is blazing at 6:00 am when our alarm rings and we reluctantly prepare to leave Svendborg. Reluctantly — because we love this charming city. But we’re sailing north to Norway, and we know we need to sail when the wind is with us. The day will be hot for the Baltic (84 F) — the hottest day of the year so far — so our heavy gear is tossed in the closet as we sail in shorts and t-shirts, gulping water, sticking out our arms in the breeze. Since our autopilot failed, steering Star Mist takes a lot more effort. Basically, one of us has to be on the helm at all times, focusing on keeping our course. I can’t even tighten the genoa alone if I want to avoid a big swerve and lengthen our passage. Knowing we are only going 30 miles and have time to spare, we avoid motoring, though our speed drops to 3.5 kts. For long stretches. Hand steering is inefficient and — on this hot, rather still day — quite monotonous.

By the time we arrive in Kerteminde we are tired and cranky. Ironically, all the standing leaves me stiff and not wanting to walk. But on shore, two white-haired women singers in Birkenstocks strumming guitars perform American folk songs for a crowd of 100 as we approach. I hear “If I Had a Hammer” in harmony as Gero pilots us into an open spot near the entrance to the fishermen’s harbor on a quay. Amazingly, I lasso a square post on the first try and secure Star Mist to the dock. We tie five other lines fore and aft, knowing that a storm is coming through tonight with big winds forecast for tomorrow. Leaving Star Mist under darkening grey skies, we smell rain as we walk toward guitars picking the tune “Blowin’ in the Wind.”
Kerteminde is busy with camper van-ers and sailors. With a heat wave strangling much of the continent, it’s no wonder we see so many camper license plates from Germany, Austria and the Netherlands.

We listen to the Danish folksingers over a delicious Anarkist NEIPA (Danish beer) and curl up inside before the skies unleash a deluge of the thunderstorm. Inside our deck salon, we love watching the rain and listening to it pound our metal roof. The next morning at 9:00, Gero’s phone buzzes. “Hello, dis iz Henrik. You called me tree times esterday?” A mechanic who is not on vacation is calling us back! We explain our autopilot problem. “My shop is too busy, but I hev a colleague who cood help u. Eeder he or I vill call u.” After our sail yesterday, we know we do not want to sail across the Kattegat without autopilot. Sure, the Vikings did it, but we are two fair-weather sailors who want to be safe and comfortable. Exhausting yourself at the helm of a sailboat is not only not fun, it can be dangerous. Because at the end of the trip, navigating into a marina, you need focus and energy. Without it, expect bangs, crashes, damaged boats and worse.
We wait on tenderhooks for Henrik's friend to call. After a few hours, someone named Jens sends us a text. “I’ll be there at 3:45.” We abandon our sightseeing and rush back to Star Mist to clean out the locker so that Jens can see the problem. Within minutes, the silver-haired, bespectacled mechanic has reproduced our problem and declared our autopilot dead. He shakes his head. “Dis rarely happens,” he says. Was it something we did? No, says Jens. It’s just bad luck. We commiserate about politics and feel confident in Jens, whose smile is punctuated with a cute gap between his two front teeth.

Jens suggests that we sail to Bogense, off our route, to his shop for the new autopilot installation. We say yes, because the alternative is calling 20 more mechanics and not knowing where we will find one. Plus, we like Jens. So we agree to meet in four days in Bogense, by which time Jens will have received the new Raymarine autopilot part.
With high winds expected, we stroll around Kerteminde. I decide to buy stamps to send a few handwritten notes, since we have time to kill. No post offices are in sight, but the local SPAR grocery store sells us five stamps for 50 kroner each. “Stamps are expensive in Denmark!” Gero observes. The young store clerk’s smile turns into an empathetic look of wonder as he replies, “Yes, they really are!” Basically, sending each note will cost $7 to send — to Germany! If you have a lot of letters to send, you might want to fly them Germany yourself!
Then we notice that you can buy four bottles of wine for the price of one postage stamp. The cost of stamps makes everything else in Denmark seem inexpensive! This is a high-tax country, but medical care is free, you don’t see poverty, and, as mentioned, Denmark always ranks among the happiest countries on earth. Somebody has to pay for it.

We take the bus to Odense and visit the Hans Christian Andersen museum. The author of “The Princess and the Pea,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes,”“The Ugly Duckling,” and so many other delightful tales was born in this city in 1805. He was raised in humble circumstances, and was most likely gay — a very tough road in those days. He staved off loneliness and fueled his soul by traveling. He declared, “To travel is to live!” He never suffered from home sickness, rather from “away-sickness,” as he called it. On average, he was abroad one day in five during his adult life! During his journeys, he visited princes, aristocrats and major European writers and artists, a number of whom became his friends.
“Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if you are hatched from a swan’s egg,” he wrote in “The Ugly Duckling.” Hans Christian Andersen's life is proof.

Was just recalling Danny Kaye as Hans Christen Andersen . . . As a family, we dreamed of Denmark from this movie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJzwC_8f6nA&list=RDKJzwC_8f6nA&start_radio=1
Your delay sounds like a story in the making. And oh what stories you are, indeed, making!