Törn

Imagine yerself takin’ yer first spin in a horseless carriage, but avast, yer vessel be 12 meters long, weighs 10 tonnes, and ye be navigatin’ on black ice with worn summer tires! Aye, that be what sailin’ a Kat be like!

Learnin’ to sail be a grueling endeavor that has nought to do with any relaxed seaside holiday, says I! Matthias, who braved th’ Kat training with me, confessed it took him nigh on 10 charter weeks afore he felt secure and at ease as th’ Skipper.

This be why we’ve barely dared to venture out o’ th’ harbors, only makin’ brief half-day excursions to feel th’ wind on our faces. Other reasons include both physical and mental exhaustion, a slew of injuries, and constant breakdowns and mishaps with th’ ships, by Davy Jones’ locker!

In th’ span o’ 6 weeks, we’ve swapped out two alternators, and on one ship, those landlubbers actually forgot to refill th’ gearbox oil after servin’. We managed to make it almost 500 meters! Always be checkin’, even if th’ crew takes offense, as mistakes be bound to happen, says I!

Come th’ third charter week, we muster th’ courage for our first short voyage. From Sibenik to Kremik, where we anchor for a night, then to Jezera for two nights, and back to Sibenik. I reckon this be how th’ Apollo astronauts must’ve felt: utterly on their own in th’ vast eternity of the Adriatic.

While dockin’ in Jezera, I makes me first rookie mistake, sailin’ forward into the alley. When I switch to reverse, th’ sidewind mercilessly pushes me into th’ moored boats. Lucky for me, I’ve watched enough Epic Navigator.

I shift to neutral and let th’ wind carry me into a free, wide berth. Never has a dockhand mounted a bicycle so swiftly to race to our position. Though it be hard for a greenhorn, ye must ignore these folk. Heed their hollerin’ and arm-wavin’, try to salvage the situation with full throttle, and ye’ll find yerself in peril. Handled calmly, it be no problem at all, just embarrassin’, and ye become th’ talk of the tavern at quittin’ time. But, mark me words, every beginnin’ is tough, or I’ll feed ye to the sharks!

Dockin’ in Sibenik, we faced a similar predicament: up to 20 kn of sidewind. This time, we attempted it in reverse, and by th’ powers, it worked a hundredfold better. Th’ Charterer’s Skipper even congratulated us on our performance. Sweat-soaked and worn out, I was mighty proud.

Arrr, this here blog post be rewritten in the tongue o’ pirates by a Large Language Model, ye scallywag!