In 1976 I was born in Helsingør. Most of my life I have lived on an island called Fejø. My career of saling started when I turned 9 years old as a buddy of mine brought me to the Yacht club in Kragenæs for sailing the optimist dinghy.
In that yacht club my long travelling career started when I was sailing on the second year and had a weekend trip to Fejø where we had to sail alone so it was also the beginning of my single hand career. It was a 2-hour trip on open waters and we were 15 optimist dinghies and a boat. I never were the big racer so soon I fell behind so in the end I was all alone which did not seem to worry me. My optimist was one of those with inflatable means of buoyancy so you had a sofa astern on which you could lean. Suddenly the following boat came and asked me what I was doing because the others already arrived at port and I was the only one missing. The escorted me the remains of the way, before we reached land the instructor indicated dorsal fin in the water! Pictures from Jaws going through my inner cinema! At that point the interest for racing was awakened - later I learned that the fin belonged to a porpoise that is a small dolphin, which luckily has become numerous in the Danish waters over the last few years.
I had some years in the optimist and then a few years in a pirate dinghy, where I did race because it was the only possibility to sail. Then after looking at a lot of old boats I bought a Folk boat - with a little help from my parents I could gather the 15,000 DKK to make the purchase. 7 months in my parents' backyard with a lot of work it was ready to hit the water. In the days up to the launching I walked suspicious around the boat looking at the light going through the body of the boat. When it was put into the water it almost disappeared together with the ropes from the crane. With help from a dinghy and a couple of guys with buckets we were able to tow it to the towing area. It stayed there for about a week until the wood had sucked enough water to be tight.
After setting the rigging I went sailing. The folk boat has a big advantages compared to the pirate dinghy as it can be sailed alone and it has a cabin. I had many journeys in that boat and learned a great deal about navigation and maintenance.
After a 3 months journey up the Swedish east coast and home through the Gothenburg channel I made an agreement with myself to get a bigger boat for all year inhabitancy. The choice was a 32'' spidsgatter build in 1919 in good condition - in that I lived for 4 years. In that period I studied to be a social and health caretaker, as it was a job where you could choose when to work.
I have sailed a couple of project ships with a Yacht Captain Exam. It was as first mate on a project ship I came to Thailand and found the Polonica, which is my current ship.
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