S/Y Solveig

Want to join as a crew member or a hitch hiker? Send an email to captain@solveig.oslo.no or signal/telegram/whatsapp/IRC/whatnot to +4791700050 / @tobixen

Updates and highlights

Loggbook available in markdown format, though not optimized for public consumption (so far).
I'm doing some blogging in Norwegian with photos in this forum thread on Baatplassen.no
I also blog in Norwegian about mistakes done in this forum thread on Baatplassen.no

Summary:

2025-03-18: Arrived to Bulgaria. All family (even my oldest son) coming to the boat again in mid-april. Looking forward for it!
2025-03-09: Have had some trips to Norway, and crew sailing around with the boat during my absense.
2025-01-01: Met the new year at Porto Rafti togheter with one of the crew that stayed with me in Dubrovnik a year ago. The old harbour of Dubrovnik was a better place to meet the new year!
End of 2024: My youngest children started in school and kinder garden in Oslo - it doesn't feel right staying at the boat in the Mediterranean while my children are in Oslo, so I've been travelling frequently between Oslo and Greece during the last few months.
2024-10-04: Got my daughter down to Crete for a week. A densely packed week, as I wanted to show my daughter Gramvousa, Tersana, Balos, and some of the other nice places in the northwestern Crete - as well as meeting up with some relatives and my mother and stepfather.
2024-08-17: Family left me for school, and I'm alone again at Santorini. Heading for Crete now.
2024-07-24: Family reunion day - and guest family arriving. Crew size increase from 1 to 9.
2024-07-19: Almost no crew or guests wants to join on short notice, but long-term planning isn't my game. I had hoped family would come in end of May, now they are coming in end of July. I made a commitment to pick up guests at Mikonos the 19th of July, so I had to sail all the way from Constanța to the Cyclades, mostly single-handedly. Then ... CrowdStrike! Turned around at Tinos, my family is now coming to the Athens airport.
2024-07-04: Back in Greece. Bulgaria and Romania was great, and I for sure will head back to the Black Sea again at some point! Greece ... I paid totally around 300 EUR and spent one full working day dealing with bureaucraziness, for an intra-Schengen trip! That's very much against the spirit of the Schengen treaty! At least, now I have the papers in order. All until I have to get the documents stamped in a port police office, and I'm again told that my Norwegian official documents are not good enough!
2024-06-13: Constanța, Romania. Decided that this would mark the end of my two years trip from Poland to Istanbul. Would love to sail to the northern shores of the Black Sea as well, but probably better to wait for more peaceful times! Romania and Bulgaria was great. If you ever feel lonely, sail to Varna and reach out to the Couchsurfing/BeWelcome community there! Or sail to Mangalia in Romania on a Friday or Saturday, and invite the boat neighbours for a drink!
2024-05-23: Arrived to Bulgaria. Nothing bad to be said about Turkey, but after more than 80 days in Turkey it felt like coming home!
2024-05-13: Arrived at Kadiköy, Istanbul
2024-04-08: Easter/spring vacation spent with family in the former Lycian region around Kaş in Turkey
2024-02-22: Been in Greece for a while. Greece is the most bureaucrazy country I've been sailing in.
2024-01-03: Celebrated new years eve in Dubrovnik old town (moored up in the old harbour), together with crew - unfortunately my son found that the only affordable return ticket for him was at the 23rd of December. Now arriving to Corfu.
2023-12-15: Neum, Bosnia. Picked up my eldest son and two friends of him, then we headed towards Dubrovnik.
2023-12-11: Spent more than an hour in the morning stuck with Croatian bureaucracy! Biked from Ploče to Mostar to meet up with an old friend from my youth, it was great! Also met my eldest son and two of his friends in Mostar.
2023-11-21: Left Tiber (Rome), heading for Bosnia where I'm to meet up with my eldest son. I spent several weeks in Tiber, including family coming over for autumn vacation.
2023-08-24: Palma de Mallorca. Family left me for school again.
2023-06-09: Family reunion in Portimao
2023-06-01: Left from Algés together with my daughter and a crew member, after spending more than half a year repairing the boat together with a crew member. I've learned so much from this!
2022-10: Algés, Lisbon. Shipyard spent more than a month giving me an ~80kEUR quote for fixing the boat! They do not accept third-party companies doing work on the yard. Portugese police does not allow me to leave the boatyard before the ship has gone through a technical inspection and found seaworthy. What a mess!
2022-09-25: Berlenga incident. Boat damaged - but I was very lucky, could easily have lost the ship!
2022-08-28: Family left me "for some few weeks", but didn't come back - my wife decided ordinary phyiscal schooling was better than homeschooling from the boat.
2022-07-07: Maintenance took much longer time than expected - for one thing the whole bow was rotten and needed to be replaced! Left from Gdansk wih the family on board.
2021-09-10: Arrived to Gdansk, Poland. Going to get some professional repair done on the ship.
2014-05-19: I officially became the third owner of "Vi-To" and renamed it Solveig
2000-06-02: "Vi-To" was launched to sea, two years delayed
1995-07-05: The construction of "Vi-To" and a sister ship commenced. (I'm not sure if the sister ship ever was launched - I heard it was sold as a project long after I became the owner of Solveig).

Future plans

May 2025 - Should get the boat up on land for a month for maintenance
Summer 2025 - Black sea in June was just perfect - good bathing temperatures, and cooler in the air than in the Med sea - so I'm considering to stay in the Black Sea over the summer. Though, the coast line is a bit boring, my wife would rather spend the summer vacation in the Med. A reasonable compromise is to start the summer vacation in the Black sea and then sail down the Bosphorus.
Later - difficult to plan too far ahead in the future. I have some wishes, some of them has to be cancelled due to too much bureaucratic or expensive border crossings (I've learnt my lesson, entry costs and formalities should be investigated prior to visiting new countries, some of them will have to wait due to wars). I also suppose I should consider heading back home at some point ... perhaps.
2026-08-12Solar eclipse, with maximum just off the west tip of Iceland, passing Greenland and parts of Spain, ending in a spectacular sunset at Sant Antonio at Ibiza ... or Palma, Mallorca? Should try to catch it somewhere.
2027-08-02If we miss the 2026 total eclipse, there is another chance in 2027. Another solar eclipse, passing the straight of Gibraltar and Tunisia. Maximum period of totality in Egypt, but checking into Egypt with a boat is very expensive plus lots of red tape.

Presentation of the ship

Solveig is a sailing boat, 13.2 meter long, 4.17 meter wide, 1.80 deep, around 20 meter tall and 14 tonn displacement. SUP board, bikes, toys, books, etc on board.

It's sort of a wooden boat, but glued together with epoxy. It also has an outer skin of glass fiber under the water line (it's important in Oslo, to protect the wood against sea ice).