For no reason I didn’t visit the town Hoorn before. This weekend this should change. For many days the expectations were North 4 Bft. From Lelystad the wind direction and course do match, even for just the genua use. Since I was not 100% ready for the real work, the mainsail would stay down.

After early breakfast we passed the docks. This took endless time: cargo vessel 2 NM away got priority, or not? The signs got red, green, red. The VHF told the group of yachts to wait, sail in, wait (almost opposite to the signs …). Very confusing. At the end, in the dock we only sink 3 cm. What was the reason to have everyone wait for 20 minutes, we could have passed the locks twice?

We set course to the Marker Wadden, easy in line of sight. A little to much beating to windward for only the genua, but we try as close-hauled as possible. Hoorn is not that far north, so we should be able to get there and we did. In about three hours, we approach the harbour of Hoorn, but will never get there. Almost immediately after I start the engine and drop the genua, the alarm goes off. No oil alarm. I turn down the engine and have a look below deck. The dipstick is complete dry, this is alarming indeed. First I drop the anchor, to  think clear, find oil and make further decisions.

The spare oil was where it should be, but not where I thought it would be (…) anyway, not enough for the whole engine. And apart from that, this looked like a big leakage. The complete oil volume from the engine had ran out and was collected in the bilge. What to do. What could be the problem and the solution. Our expectation was that at Saturday afternoon in Hoorn it was unlikely to have this fixed by the evening. Following Sunday will not be better at all. Probably this would take days. Hoorn is not easy to reach from my home and it would cost a lot of money for mooring costs. We have time, good wind direction, still not dark and 90% battery and good weather forecast. So I decide to sail back to Lelystad and call a tugboat there. Never done for a non-emergency situation and never to tow through locks, so not completely relaxed. Also the weather forecast was a little increase (4-5) in wind. I did not like to anchor without shelter, when necessary in the situation we need to wait for the tugboat.

In the end the tugboat was there in the neighbourhood of the Marker Wadden, even to soon. Through the locks was no problem. This time the lock keeper gave us priority and we moored in our own harbour. In 2 weeks we will know more about the problem and the solution.