Vikings Beckon

Both the Norwegian marine mechanical guru Jan Martin (who was kind enough to respond to our texts) and our spiritual leader, circumnavigator John Neal, suggested we open up our nonworking solenoid and try to repair it ourselves, so we could get our anchor back in use. What is a solenoid, you ask? It's an electromagnetic device that converts electrical energy into mechanical motion. Basically it's a way station for a lot of power -- in this case enabling our windlass to lift and lower a heavy steel anchor deep in the sea. Something had gone wrong inside that solenoid -- maybe a power overload, internal burning ... we weren't sure what.

While all the Norwegian boat mechanics seemed to be on vacation, we thought, "What's the worst that could happen if we try to repair it ourselves?" A huge amount of electricty runs through that solenoid, so we needed to be careful.

“Let’s not have a death on board, love,” my beautiful husband suggested. Good plan.

We disconnected all the batteries and unplugged shore power. I folded my limbs into a pretzel and turned my neck into a snorkel tube and set to work with wrenches and our toolkit to dislodge the blue solenoid box from the bow locker. Having learned the hard way that it’s easier to dismantle a system than put it back together correctly, I snapped photos from every angle as if dropping breadcrumbs along my path so I could conceivably put this Humpty Dumpty back together again.

When the solenoid box finally popped open, its disease could be diagnosed. One of the metal connecting points was charcoal black and dusty — a massive surge of electricity had burned the metal and even blasted a crater into a mound of metal. With steel wool and sandpaper, we filed away all the burnt metal and smoothed the crater into a flat plateau. Switching the burnt areas to match up with the unharmed metal in hopes that spreading the compromised components would minimize their impact, we sealed the solenoid back together. Then I scrunched my body back into a ball and dropped into the locker to reposition the 36 screws, bolts and giant cables into their original positions.

Then, the moment of truth. Gero and I climbed out to the bow locker and pushed the down button. Victory! It worked like a charm. Full of brio, we cheered and pushed the up button. Click click. Nothing. The surgery had only moved the problem to the other side of the solenoid. Rats.

“I’ll bet if you sand down the parts a little more, you’ll get it working,” John Neal encouraged.

“Try a flat file,” Jan Martin prescribed. “That should du the trick,” he texted in his Nor-english. After an hour, we had filed down the metal connecting parts so they shimmered like new.

“Honey,” I said brightly, “it will go much faster this time!” Headlamp strapped on, I scrunched my body so that it could fit inside an egg and plopped back into the locker to repeated the whole process.

“I think you fixed it!” Gero announced optimistically. I was nervous. During all the removing and replacing the solenoid box, the screws holding it to the wall of the locker were shaky. Had I replaced all the wiring correctly? Why did the cables look dusty? Should those small wires be bent? Even my breadcrumb trail of photos couldn’t answer the mounting questions in my mind.

And then, the test. Down button, click click! Red button, silence. Our onboard expert Gemini said some electric components have only a thin layer of connecting metal. Underneath that layer, another metal may not conduct electricity. The open-solenoid surgery failed. Sigh. But no lives were lost. Yay!? After many phone calls with Norwegians named Kristian, Ole, and Per, we ordered a replacement solenoid box (and a spare) to be shipped to Arendal Båtsenter, a local boat dealer.

While we waited, Gero and I hoisted our sails and caught the westerly winds to the cute hamlet of Grimstad, where Henrik Ibsen, one of the fathers of modern drama, got his start. When Ibsen was only 15, he moved to Grimstad to become an apprentice pharmacist. After the pharmacy closed each night, Ibsen climbed the stairs to the small attic and scribbled late into the night by candle light. Several years later, he completed his first play. Did you know Ibsen’s works, like The Doll House, Hedda Gabler, and Peer Gynt, are the second most often performed plays in the world, just behind those of William Shakespeare?

Stocked with a load of Ibsen plays in our hold, we sailed back to Arendal anticipating the arrival of our new solenoids. Climbing over rocky hills and dales to Arendal Båtsenter, we arrrived just before closing time (4:00 pm) and were met by friendly, bearded young viking named “Ivar."

“Hi! Here are your solenoids,” he said, handling over a heavy cardboard box.

“Don’t you want us to pay before we take them?” we asked.

“Nah,” he said. “You can send a bank transfer when you have time.”

“You trust us?” my beautiful husband joked.

“This is South Norway,” Ivar shrugged. “We trust everybody.”

Now experienced solenoid changers, we easily installed the shiny new control box. Finally, the windlass purred like new.

Then, as if a light switch had been flipped, the swarms of boats zooming around Norwegian Riviera suddenly disappeared. "Surrounded by quiet Swedish nature, there is hardly a ripple on the surface, no noise, no rush. Just the Sirius 35 DS, the water and the soft northern evening light," our friends at Sirius wrote. Star Mist floated in tranquility almost by herself. Under a determined late summer sun, we followed our fellow sailors into the chilly baltic for early evening swimming. 19, 18, 17 degrees, the thermometer said. Brrr! Mackerel chased minnows in and out of the marina fairways. As dusk arrived slightly earlier each night, inky skies hosted thousands of tiny sparkling stars.

After our lllllong winter, at the beginning of the summer, we were not sure we would sail out of Strömstad, Sweden, at all. But then, the friendly Norwegian vikings beckoned us to explore their beautiful, shining coastline. They inspired and encouraged us along the way. As Ragnar Lothbrok famously said in the Netflix series Vikings, “Don’t waste your time looking back. You are not going that way.” Onward, ro!