When Turid came to the family in 1966

- told to the tape recorder 1967-01-06

Turid from Lofoten was the boat we had when I, Jakob, was a child. Here is the story of how it was purchased and came into the family.

Photo: Staffan Norstedt

People:

• Father Staffan
• Mother Berit
• Jacob, five years old.

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The purchase

Staff:
- We were in Stockholm at the beginning of the summer of 1966 and then our plans began to take shape. Berit and I wandered around quite a lot after the quays in Stockholm and especially after Strandvägen and looked at all the hundreds of boats that were moored there.

Berit:
- We had quite definite wishes; it wouldn't be a small boat but a fishing boat or something like we would have. But it didn't have to be too big either. We saw many big schooners but a big schooner is not for such a small crew as ours.

Staff:
- But at least we saw a schooner from Lofoten that looked very attractive. We contacted the owner but didn't really look at it much.

Eventually we saw an ad in Dagens Nyheter and that ad said that there was a ten meter Lofoten schooner for sale in Stockholm.

We eventually wrote a letter to the person who advertised and then we got some more detailed information:
The letter stated that the boat had been bought in Røst in Lofoten last year and that there were two pilots, Bosse Eriksson and Hans Bladh, who had bought the boat up there in the spring or summer of 1965.

They had then made a holiday trip from Røst along the Norwegian coast and through the Göta canal up to Stockholm (Read about when Turid was picked up in Norway). Then the boat had to lie in Stockholm over the winter and now it was thus in the summer of 1966 moored in Äppelviken in Stockholm.

Berit:
- But you, Staffan, worked at ÖA for the whole month of July, so it wasn't until the beginning of August that we could go down to Stockholm and look at that boat that we were quite interested in.

We went… Yes, when did we go? On August 5, it was decided. And we happened to get a hotel room right next to where the boat was in Äppelviken. I remember that Staffan went out in the early hours of the morning the day after we had arrived and looked for the boat, he seemed quite interested. We contacted a so-called expert as well, a shipyard owner, who promised to come in and look at the boat.

We had arranged a meeting on August 6th with these airmen, hadn't we?

Staff:
- Yes, that's right. When Berit and I went towards Äppelviken, we heard a very loud banging from a large cult lighter in the middle of Äppelviken and we soon saw that the two pilots were out there and were having a hard time trying to get the engine on the boat Turid to start. I don't think they succeeded very well. But we made it out to the boat anyway.

They rowed ashore and picked us up and then we looked at it and we thought it was very nice. And that was it. The size was exactly what we wanted it to be. We also started to do some negotiations about the price and they had requested SEK 14,000 for the boat and it didn't take long until we had agreed that SEK 11,000 would be a fair price for us. That was roughly what we estimated to be able to pay within a month or so.

In any case, we went home from Stockholm after the boat expert Lind had looked at the boat and he had only positive things to say about it.

Berit:
- He thought it would be a good price for such a boat, right?

Staff:
- Yes. He also had a lot of good advice to give us.
He didn't think we should work ourselves to death on the boat in the first place, but try to keep it as much as possible in its original appearance.
And that was also roughly what we ourselves had envisioned.

Berit:
- Yes, although we probably didn't want to be quite as careful as these pilots.

They hadn't done anything to the boat yet, but if they were going to keep it, they weren't going to rebuild it. What were their plans? Open the hold?

Staff:
- Yes, the boat was made so that in the bow there was a shelter or a cabin where the crew had once lived during the fishing trips outside Lofoten. And in the middle there was a large hold where fish had been stored. In the stern, there was a wheelhouse and below the wheelhouse was the engine room where a 16-horsepower spark ball engine of the brand Wichmann ruled.

Berit:
- Yes, how did they intend to change it?

Staff:
- They had only intended to change it so that they would have a canvas roof over the hold and then you could sit down there in the open salon on beautiful days. But those of us who know how the summers are up here in Norrland, we knew that it was hardly a suitable solution for us, instead we counted on rebuilding the hold into a salon that could be heated to a tolerable temperature so that we could have a nice floating summer house in the coming summers.

Berit:
- One problem was how we could get the boat up, right?

Staff:
- Up to Örnsköldsvik, yes. There I thought I made a smart move. I managed to persuade the pilots that they would help us up with the boat to Örnsköldsvik and that it would be included in the purchase agreement.

Berit:
- You were a little afraid to start the journey alone, weren't you?

Staff:
- Yes, it has been completely impossible. A boat that weighs 15-20 tons and is ten meters long and four meters wide and 1.6 meters deep. You can't operate it alone, especially with the engine that was in it. So it was a condition for us to be able to buy the boat that we got help with
get it up to Örnsköldsvik.

Berit:
- And it could be arranged, then.

Bringing Turid home

Staff:
- In mid-August, a week before school was to start, I traveled down to Stockholm alone. On August 18, I stocked up in Äppelviken in a larger spice shop and prepared the food we needed for a perhaps one-week trip from Stockholm to Örnsköldsvik. We calculated that the boat would need to be running for approximately 50-60 hours and it would be approximately 350 nautical miles from Stockholm to Örnsköldsvik.

On the evening of August 18, we started the journey and on August 19, after walking all night past Vaxholm and up the coast, we arrived at Öregrund.

Berit:
- And you called home and sounded very discouraged and said that... Yes, you were quite disappointed with the engine and so on. You thought it was probably much more complicated to take care of it than you could have ever imagined. I wasn't exactly encouraged by that report.

Staff:
- I was very tired. We had started the journey from Stockholm at 8pm the night before, so I had been up and running until 12am the following day. I hadn't slept at all, so it wasn't so strange to be a little discouraged when you noticed that three men were needed to manage the boat.

In any case, we left Öregrund the same day, August 19, and continued north along the coast. And so we went one more night and arrived at Härnösand on Saturday evening.

We had made a very quick journey and we were very proud that we had arrived at Härnösand so early and thought then to call home to our relatives and make them a little surprised by the strange journey. In any case, you can't just be happy in this life.

When we arrived at Härnösand, we had expected to be able to pass by the two bridges that were inside the inner harbor and then pass north the following day. Now it wasn't as easy as we thought. The inner harbor was very shallow and we very soon ran aground as well because charts and
reality did not match so well. During our attempts to get off the ground in the mud banks in the inner harbour, we were assisted by coastal gunners and it was no better than a log swirled up from the bottom and went into the propeller. And so there wasn't much else to do that day.

In any case, we got off the ground and moored near a timber beam and took it easy. We slept through the night and inspected the propeller the next day, Sunday morning, and it was not a happy discovery when we discovered that the propeller blades looked like spaghetti, as Bosse Eriksson said after the first inspection.

Now we were pretty short on time, so it was important to hurry if we were to get up to Örnsköldsvik before the two pilots would start their duties again. So on Sunday, August 21, we contacted KA5's shipyard and they sawed off the tips of the propeller blades so that we could continue up towards Örnsköldsvik.

So on Monday 22 August we started from Härnösand and continued for a stretch up to Örnsköldsvik and it was a very lovely trip.

The sea was completely calm and fine and the sky was cloudless. The strange thing was that we actually saw two whales looming in the distance far out on the horizon. We saw two bright fine jets of steam sweep up. It was very strange.

In the evening or in the afternoon of August 22, we approach Örnsköldsvik and we had a very nice walking time even then.

The homecoming

Berit:
- Yes, we weren't expecting you in the first place. I had expected that it would take some time, maybe that you would come at eight or something like that in the evening. We were out in the country. Do you remember what it was like, Jakob?

Staff:
- Tell me what it was like when you first saw Turid come to Örnsköldsvik.

Jakob:
- As soon as I got out of the car, I went down to the jetty and looked around, then I saw a boat coming and then mother came down with the binoculars and looked and then it was Turid who came.

Berit:
- Yes, we didn't believe you when you said that now Turid is coming. We didn't think it was true, because we thought it would be several more hours before Turid would arrive. But Turid was just as you thought.

Jakob:
- Yes.

Berit:
- What did we hear?

Jakob:
- Yes, when I was standing there and it had come a little closer, I heard the engine.

Berit:
- Yes, it lived again, didn't it?

Jakob:
- It sounded like this: Thump, thump, thump, thump, thump, thump. So it sounded. Yes, and then before a few more people had come down on the bridge, they went around a few laps.

Berit:
- They had expected a large welcoming committee, I think. But it was only Jakob who stood and waited first.

Yes, and then you thought to put ashore, Jakob might remember what it was like. Could they go in to the dock?

Staff:
- No, it was too shallow. Was it not like that?

Jakob:
- Yes.

Staff:
- How did we manage to stay?

Jakob:
- They anchored out in the water.

Berit:
- How deep is the boat?

Staff:
- It requires 1.6 meters of water to float. And there wasn't that much outside the bridge anyway.

Autumn 1966

Staff:
- During the autumn, we started the rebuilding of Turid. We have scraped the foredeck and the cabin roof and we have repainted the foredeck.

Berit:
- Where do we have the boat?

Staff:
- Yes, it is now on the quay in Örnsköldsvik below the bus station and it was quite a strange experience to pick up the boat on the quay. We didn't dare start the Wichmann, that old engine.

Rather, we didn't get it started, but we were towed by Ragnar Wallin, who took us in tow behind his small motorboat to the quay in Örnsköldsvik on October 1 or 2. So the big crane in Ö-vik took us up in a nice lift and set us down on the quay. And there it has been for several months.

Now the bottom is scraped and Berit has done his part to impregnate the boat and so much more has probably not been done unless a small unpleasant episode occurred.

Berit:
- Do you mean the teacher conflict?

Staff:
- Yes, I mean the teacher conflict.

Berit:
- Yes, we can pass that one by in silence. We were unemployed for a couple of weeks here. But you weren't really unemployed, you didn't have paid work, but you had the boat to deal with, as I said. What were you doing there?

Staff:
- Yes, several days later I went down to town and started dismantling Mr. Wichmann and with the help of some scrap experts from a scrap company in town, we managed to beat and screw it to pieces. And now there is nothing left of the proud creation. Everything is removed and I have tried to clean the engine room as best I can and prepared the installation of a new engine which will take place in the spring.

Berit and I have also been down to Sundsvall and signed a contract for a Bolinder 40-horse engine and it is to be installed in the spring in April or May. And so we expect a successful launch at the beginning of May. What will happen next, we can only dream about. We don't know much about it at the moment anyway.

Berit:
- You have wild plans for remodeling anyway? I'm trying to calm you down a bit.