Yukon in Tasmania, a former Danish trawler earns her way around the globe.
By David Nash,
published in the Wooden Boat Magazin 2024
In 2008, my wife, Ea, and I, along with our sons,
Kristopher and Aron (eight and five at the time),
decided to circumnavigate the globe. I had been in
Denmark for 16 years, during which time we’d restored our 54-ton, 60′ ketch, YUKON (see WB No. 220). Originally named ELLY, YUKON was built of oak on oak in Denmark in 1930. She was launched with a 67-hp auxiliary diesel engine, a member of the inaugural generation of auxiliary Danish fishing trawlers called hajkutter,
or shark cutters, in deference to their effectiveness at catching fish. From 1997 to 2004, we had thoroughly rebuilt her from the waterline up.
A world voyage was an exciting commitment that
required a significant change from the life to which we’d become accustomed. At the time, we had an old, partially restored farmhouse on the island of StrynØ and a thriving charter business on our Danish home waters. But, after six seasons of charter life, a dull famil
iarity had begun to seep in. We wanted something
more, given the personal and financial investment our family had made in YUKON. I recall saying “it seems logical,” when one owns a vessel of this tonnage and design, to want to cross an ocean or two in her. Other wise it would be an opportunity missed and a regret we didn’t want.
We weren’t strangers to such voyages and lifestyle: Ea had crossed the Atlantic a few years before we married in 2000. Likewise, I had made several ocean crossings in traditional vessels and been a mate in my native Australia on the 200-metric-ton sail-training brigantine ONE AND ALL, and had also done my shipwright apprentice
ship during her construction. We were both aware of the joys and challenges of long passages and wanted to give
our two boys the chance to experience the world as mariners, with no airports. They would literally earn their miles, and sailing would give them a rare connection with the planet. And so we decided to go.
Preparation
After six seasons around the Baltic Sea, we were starting to understand YUKON’s deficiencies in regard to ocean sailing. She needed more ballast and more sail area—two elements of a vessel that go hand in hand.
YUKON is no speed-record breaker, but her average of about 5 knots would serve us well. As part of our invigo rating and demanding preparations, we crossed a single yard just above her main hounds about 35′ above the deck; the yard, a solid 29′-long Douglas-fir spar, 10″ in diameter at its middle, could be raised and lowered on a halyard. It would be controlled with fore and aft braces and lifts.
This system avoids the need for a truss arm off the mast; in essence the yard is floating, and the halyard system enables it to be lowered in extreme conditions to reduce windage and weight aloft.
The 45-square-meter (about 485 sq ft) sail that sets on this yard (it’s called a course, or bredfok in Danish) is narrower at the foot than the head. There’s no need to go aloft to set it; it’s raised and lowered by halyards, from the deck. Later in the voyage we handstitched a raffee, a little triangular sail set above the yard. Such a sail plan is common in Scandinavia; it gives good sail area off the wind and enables relatively easy handling from the deck.
YUKON’s 1930 keel was intact, but I could detect a
slight hog over its 15-meter (nearly 50′) length. We thus decided to fasten an I-beam under it, after first removing a 2″ sacrificial worm shoe. We fastened the keel to the keelson with bolts 32mm (11⁄4″) in diameter. Some of those bolts were a meter long, and they provided security in addition to the original keelbolts. We then packed a slurry of metal filings mixed with concrete into the sides of the I-beam. It was grueling work. We had rented time on the slipway of Ring Andersen Shipyard in Svendborg, Denmark, between Christmas and
New Year’s so we could get a discounted price; it was cold work, too. We mixed glycol with the concrete to keep it from freezing. All this effort gave us an extra 4 tons of ballast down deep. YUKON had always felt a little too lively in a seaway, so this extra ballast combined with our big yard aloft created a more seakindly vessel.
Our naval architect, Hans Jacobsen, crunched the
numbers to ensure our dynamic stability remained
within the letter of the law.
We also decided to make changes to our deck layout, particularly aft. Davits laminated from plywood and ’glassed over would hold a secondhand 14′ inflatable as a tender, and we mounted a couple of 120-watt solar panels across their tops. We also added new curved benches
around the counter. The benches, however, displaced the original chain-to-tiller steering system. We found a more compact hydraulic steering system in the ship breakers over in Jutland, cleaned it up, and installed it.
This whole rearrangement provided good space for all
of us to sit in comfort; it would be where most meals were eaten, and watches kept.
To prepare for weeks at sea, we needed to increase our freshwater capacity. Our drinking water would be stowed below in three 300-liter (80-gallon) bladders under the saloon benches and a bunk in the aft cabin. Two 200-liter (53-gallon) drums lashed one to each side of the mainmast would store washing and cleaning water collected via a tarpaulin. We added 50 extra meters (164′) of 1⁄2″ anchor chain to the existing 50 meters and added a 50-kilogram (110-lb) Bruce
anchor forward.
In preparation for her world-roaming voyage, YUKON was hauled at the Ring Andersen yard in Svendborg, Denmark, formodifications to her keel, ballast, rig, tankage, and other items.
Aron Nash was 7 years old when YUKON began her voyage. He returned home a college graduate and licensed mariner.
David installed a yard from which he would rig a course and rafee to optimize long downwind passages. Here, the new yard is about to be hoisted aloft.
Departure, Arrival, and Reflagging.
We planned a summer 2010 departure, intending to get
our westing out of Scandinavia via the CaledonianCanal, which follows the Great Glen in the north of Scotland. This avoids the misery of the English Channel, with its good probability of headwinds and masses
of traffic; we would get our sea legs while enjoying the
splendor of the Highlands, then turn south via Ireland,
Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands, and Cape Verde,
after which we would cross to Barbados and the southern Caribbean. Eventually we would transit the Panama Canal into the Pacific Ocean and proceed on the Coconut Milk run: west, west, west, to Isla del CoCo, the Galápagos Islands, Marquesas, Tuamotus, Society
Islands, Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, New Caledonia, and then to my homeland of Australia.
After that, we’d sail through the Red Sea, Suez Canal, Mediterranean Sea, and back to Demark in the
autumn of 2012. It was a tidy plan meant to take us back to Denmark in two-and-a-half years so our boys could enroll in school by January 2013. But, in the immortal words of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, “The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft a-gley.”
While YUKON was in the Galápagos Islands, we
heard news of a pirate raid off Somalia involving
another Danish vessel with a young family on board.
They were taken hostage and their vessel was sunk.
Their ordeal would last a further 18 months until a
hefty ransom was paid. Thischanged everything for us. There was no way we could justify the risk of sailing along that coast.
Our first impulse was to turn around and head back home to Denmark via Panama. But we had
many bookings for the Pacific leg, and the 8,000-mile trek across this great ocean was the highlight
of the voyage. So we resolved to push on westward, sticking to ourschedule, and take a year off in the Australian island state of Tasmania.
This wild windy island set smack in the middle of the Roaring 40s, separated from the Australian continent by the 250-mile-wide Bass Strait, is a place of incredible natural beauty and a small population. People still stop on the streets and speak to each other. There are small corner stores with local vegetables in the windows. I had sailed here a couple of times in the ’80s in ONE AND ALL, and remembered the good cruising grounds on the southeast coast provided by the shelter of Bruny Island in the D’Entrecasteaux Channel. “A lifetime of anchorages,” a good friend of mine wrote
to me when we spread the word that we planned to stay for a year.
YUKON’s arrival in Tasmania in October 2011 was asort of homecoming for me. On our first day alongside in Hobart, John Young came aboard. He and his wife, Ruth, had established the Shipwright’s Point School ofWooden Boat Building in the early 1990s in nearby Franklin. I knew him well from my days working on and
sailing aboard ONE AND ALL in the 1980s. He had
been the prime mover behind this labor-intensive project, through which some great and enduring friend ships were forged. It was easy and natural for us to join this community.
Kristopher and Aron, who were 11 and 8 by then,
were indeed ready for a more permanent community.
They had spent the past 16 months cruising. Home
schooling has its advantages, and snorkeling the coral reefs of the South Pacific has its charms, but the intensity of shipboard life was starting to show. The local primary school at Franklin came to the rescue. The boys enrolled two days after their arrival while still on tourist visas. Ea found work in a local restaurant, and I picked up a job restoring an old lapstrake dinghy. How quickly life can change. Barely a week earlier, we were sighting the coast of Tasmania over the bow for the first time; now we were immersed in a small riverside community, with no idea then that we’d stay for as long as we did.
The modifications made to YUKON included the installation of U-shaped seating in the helm area. This would become the vessel’s social center.
YUKON was initially in Australian waters on a
12-month cruising permit. As that permit’s expiration
neared, we needed to decide whether we would slip our
lines and carry on around the world or pay import duty and re-register her as an Australian vessel. This was bit of a rigmarole. We set our sights on getting YUKON under Australian survey so we could once again operate as a commercial vessel and earn a living from our little ship.
The surveying authority in Tasmania at that
time was the state-based organization Marine
and Safety Tasmania (MAST). The head sur
veyor was a shipwright by trade and had a life
long understanding of large wooden vessels.
He and his colleagues proved themselves to
be cooperative and expedient in their assis
tance. The vessel-certification laws of Den
mark and Australia are relatively similar, and
after some minor adjustments and improve
ments YUKON was issued an Australian certificate of survey in 2013. This was a month or so before the Australian Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart. We were thus ready to do short cruises out of Hobart for the festival, which attracts 80,000 visitors per day. With that, we finally added some coins to the kitty.
The certificate of survey once again opened up the
charter industry to us. To get started, we made two voyages to Sydney with a group called Two Hands, which is focused on plastic pollution in oceans and on beaches; we did this in cooperation with the adventure-travelgroup Wild Diaries. We also founded a program called East Coast Odyssey, through which we sold berths to citizen scientists and experts in ornithology and pelagic studies. On these cruises, we trawled as YUKON was built to do, though our quarry was now specimens for microplastic analysis rather than fish for food. These voyages were fascinating. We worked with knowledgeable people, some of whom were in their element, some of whom were not. We learned to observe nature on a whole new level, and my eyes were opened to the vast problem we face with plastic pollution.
After the Sydney trips, we decided as a family to
move ashore. This enabled us to operate YUKON in a more businesslike manner, allowing the family a few
degrees of separation from the repetitive elements of
charter life. In addition, both of our boys were expanding their interests and getting into music—Kristopher on saxophone and clarinet, Aron on trumpet. Practice time on the boat could be challenging to family harmony. Ea, meanwhile, had found a full-time job as a social worker in the nearby town of Geeveston. I was working at the boat school on various projects, including the total restoration of a 36′ Huon pine motor launch, LESHELEN, that kept me busy for about three
years. It was an ideal situation, allowing me the convenience of laying down my tools to do a river charter aboard YUKON on short notice.
We had been fortunate enough to house-sit a variety of places in the Franklin area over the previous couple of years, but to move ashore to our own rental was a big step. The amount of gear and personal effects that we unloaded—books, tools, clothing, spares—was aston
ishing. I reckon the vessel jumped a couple of inches on the waterline. It was a great opportunity to clear away a few years’ clutter and start some maintenance projects and upgrades that had been haunting us for a decade.
We had become ensconced in this community. One
year in Tasmania had suddenly turned into four.
FRANKLIN
Franklin is situated on the Huon River in southeast
Tasmania, approximately 50 kilometers (31 miles)
south of Hobart, the island’s capital. It is a small hamlet, quite old by Australian standards, but was once a thriving river port. As road transportation was devel
oped, its status as a port declined. The region had traditionally provided off-season fruit to the British market; the decline of the apple industry in the 1970s took a deep toll on families that had farmed the area for generations.
The establishment of The Wooden Boat Centre by
Dr. John Young and his wife, Ruth, in Franklin in the early 1990s has often been heralded as one of the keyturning points for the town. This super-energetic couple led a highly motivated core group to create what is now a well-renowned school turning out beautiful yachts,
Huon-pine lapstrake dinghies, and boatbuilders.
The center attracts students from around the world.
Tasmania has long had a splendid tradition of build
ing ships and boats in wood. It has all the key ingredi
ents for this: difficult terrain for road and rail, easy access to global sailing ship routes, good timber, and a cool and forgiving temperate climate. Wooden boat building has not really had a revival in Tasmania
because it never died out.
Franklin is home to another noble institution, the Living Boat Trust. This not-for-profit volunteer organization is situated next door to The Wooden Boat Centre; it fosters boat-handling skills in traditional craft.
The trust runs an on-the-water program teaching
young school kids basic sailing and rowing skills and hosts several annual regattas as well as daily rowing in Iain Oughtred–designed St. Ayles Skiffs, of which three
have been built by the trust and its volunteers. —DN
David and Ea during the crossing of Bass Strait, en route from mainland Australia to Tasmania.
In Tasmania, YUKON received some new planking of clear bluegum (Eucalyptus globulus).
YUKON’s new planking
came from a magnificent 100’-long bluegum log that had been saved from the chipper 20 years earlier and carefully stored.
YUKON makes one of her daily runs on the Huon River from Franklin
Charter Life and Maintenance.
We had developed a few different products to get
YUKON working in local waters. One was a 90-minute excursion on the Huon River, in which we would motor upwind, turn around, and set the square for a run home downwind, Viking style. It was a treat. People were amazed at the silence of a vessel under sail. At its Franklin stretch, the Huon River is about half a mile wide and has long islands—the Egg Islands—that provide great birdwatching. The place is too narrow for us to tack to windward, so our birdwatching outings there were laid-back and relaxing. Such “Calm Water Cruises,” as we dubbed them, proved to be popular. Many of our clients sailed for the first time in their lives, with no risk of seasickness. (The region could be a challenging place to sail. Because of the surrounding
mountains, one can be drifting along idly one minute, and the next hanging on for dear life as a good 30-knot gust gets you going.)
By the time we left Tasmania, we had done 1,130 of these cruises and carried over 11,000 people, from newborns to a 102-year-old. I never tired of this little gig. Sometimes the repetition of questions wore me down, but the natural beauty of the river and all its moody year-round were endlessly fascinating, and the regularity of our twice-a-day cruises created family and financial stability.
Sitting on our front porch high up in the hills above the township, we could gaze about this magnificent verdant valley of the Huon River. I think it is one of the world’s most beautiful places. YUKON lay on her wharf below like a miniature. We could feel the distance between us and her growing. We quickly softened to the comforts of shore, but for the time being it was an indulgence we were willing to risk.
Boats, like people, become part of the place if they stay long enough.
There were practical considerations to attend to during our Tasmanian sojourn. After looking at curtains on the aft cabin lockers for 13 years, I finally made doors for them out of Tasmania’s prized Huon pine. We also replaced the garboard and first broad strakes on the starboard bow and port quarter using Tasmanian blue gum (Eucalyptus globulus), a superbshipbuilding wood.
These 12″-wide planks were originally of Danish beech, which is remarkably resilient below water and cheaper than oak. Often the first three or four strakes were of beech. In all, we changed 50 meters (about 165′) of planking in Tasmania.
I discovered that there was scope to make these plank changes part of the short-course program at The Wooden Boat Centre. Students from Tasmania and mainland states enrolled in the weeklong course, which
The planking crew lays out a spiling batten on a bluegum flitch.
included removing the old plank, inspecting and preparing exposed frames, making the template or pattern for the replacement plank, selecting stock, and then fashioning, fairing, steaming, fitting, and fastening the new plank. This was then followed up by a tutorial on caulking—a skill many students saw as being their prime motivation for taking the course. Many of them were wooden boat owners. We had access to a magnificent piece of blue gum, originally about 98′ (30 meters) long, which was donated to the school 20 years previously by a local sawmilling family named Watson. This massive tree was saved from
the woodchipper by the astute eye of old man Watson, who was a longtime believer in traditional ways. He
transported it free of charge, cut into three lengths and then sawn into three huge flitches 1 meter by 1 meter by11 meters long (about 3′ × 3′ × 36′). Over the history of the school’s keelboat construction program, this same tree was apparently the source of all backbone hard woods. I felt pretty lucky having access to this river-seasoned timber. With the help of a local boatbuilder, Peter Laidlaw, and a host of others, we would drag one of these 10-ton mud-soaked monsters out of the tidal shallows of the river using tractors, chains, rollers, and elbow grease in preparation for slabbing a plank with Peter’s Stihl 090 avchainsaw which, when running,would wake the whole town. We were getting 55mm (about 2″) planks about 600mm (about 24″) wide and 11 meters long. There was not a knot to be seen. It was just awesome having access to such prime stock in this modern-day world of 6-meter (20′) lengths.
But I digress. YUKON, despite these Australian
additions, is still a Danish boat. The only thing I could not source were the 5″ galvanized square spikes needed to fasten the planks. They were readily available in Denmark, so each time we were back in Denmark to visit family, they would fill my baggage for the flight back to Australia. The quizzical looks on the faces of the customs officers confirmed the depth of my lifelong boat affliction.
We fell into a comfort and rhythm in our adopted
home, but by 2021 there were changes heading our
way fast.
YUKON, painted blue for her return voyage, lies at anchor off the Yemeni island of Socotra.
Kristopher and Aron hang by the helm inIndonesia.
—Aron updates YUKON’s world chart during her Indian Ocean crossing, en route home to Denmark.
Homeward Bound.
About halfway through our only Covid-19 lockdown in
Tasmania, I set about lofting up a 1:25-scale half model of YUKON. It was something I had wanted to do for years, but could never find the time for until the quarantine. So, we found ourselves together in our house, a family of four. Kristopher, by then 21, was in the front room; he had managed to return to Tasmania from the University of Melbourne just before an extended period of lockdown. Aron was by then 18. Both were studying over the internet. YUKON was not operating in what would normally be her peak season. It was a challenging time, and trying to keep the charter business solvent was not easy. As we sat down together on one of our Friday-night family pizza bakes, the notion of continuing our voyage around the world kept popping up in the conversation. Could we do it? Would we do it?
Business had been good. Ea and I had built it up,
along with a community of local friends, but it took us
years to do so. But the shadow of an unfinished voyage somehow loomed over us, and our old house on the Danish island of Strynø was calling, as well. Here we were again: something wilder was calling, the open sea, new islands, continuing the job we had started. All of
the reasons in life to keep on moving were out in the
open again.
Once the decision to continue was made, the wheels were set in motion. We found ourselves slowly saying goodbye to this beautiful part of the world. With mixed emotions, we sailed our final voyage around to Port Davey and slowly shut down our business, finishing up
our river cruises in the autumn of 2022.
Before too long we found ourselves drafting up a fresh version of our old sail plan, making lists, and imagining sailing back to Denmark. The boys had earned their coxswain tickets certificates of competency issued by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority—and were committed to departing in winter 2022. This timing was ripe:
YUKON transiting the Suez Canal.
Kristopher had just completed his bachelor’s degree in music and Aron was in his final year of high school in Hobart.
The people of Franklin provided us a grand farewell
on June 21, the Australian winter solstice. Music, cider,
sunshine, and tears flowed in abundance as we were
ushered downstream by the local flotilla.
Our route took us up the east coast of Australia to
Thursday Island, across the Gulf of Carpentaria through Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, and India, where we picked up the northeast monsoon to the Yemeni island of Socotra—avoiding the Somali coast— and then transited the Red Sea into the Mediterranean.
We then sailed up the Atlantic coast of Europe, reaching Strynø by the end of July 2023.
This latter portion of our voyage took us 13 months.
Circumnavigating had always been one of our greatest ambitions. To be able to complete the adventure after a 12-year pause created a myriad of experiences that a faster voyage would have missed.
David Nash is a native of Adelaide, South Australia, a mariner of traditional sail, and a shipwright. He lives with his wife, Ea, on the island of Strynø in southern Denmark.
A flotilla of boats welcomed YUKON to her home island of Strynø, Denmark.
Republished with thanks, from the original in Wooden Boat Magazine.