A new leg and a new crew on board. Well actually we have a double crew on board for our stay in Bergen. Nobody wants to miss out on the spectacle of the Tall Ships in Bergen so the new crew have taken over the bunks and the cruise-in-company crew are camping out on deck using the mizzen drapped over the boom as a tent.

Our racing crew still has four of the originals on board. Robbie and myself together with Brian and Pauline. To make up the new voyage crew we are joined by five young sailors from Stornaway in the Western Isles. They are Elidh, Kirsteen, Sarah, Sean and Murdanie. Mervyn is Vice-Mayor of Den Helder in the Netherlands. Ben is a pupil at Sanday Junior High School in Orkney and Adam and Stanley are from Shetland. Coming to join the Swan crew are Willie who is a pilot in Scapa Flow and Bobby o da heights who did the Tall Ships with us in '99 and then went on to sail aboard Eye of the Wind as permanent crew in the Tall Ships last year.

Let's start with a message from Mervyn.

"Having left Den Helder (Holland) with beautiful weather I was not amazed that the sun was also shining here in Bergen. In fact it was hot which made sleeping a bit hard. I guess I was a bit tired because I slept through all the terrible things that happened during the night. At nine o'clock the liaison-officer came round to make sure we would catch the 9:30 bus to go out playing football. "Of course we would" However despite of the fact that only three of the team were up and the others were stil being our "dreaming" team we made in in time. Our first match was against the Russians. We thought ourselves lucky because we didn't have to play the Italians or the Mexicans. We had seen them handling the ball during their warming up..... They were terrific. Within one minute Stewart made a goal. This was going to be our tournement after all. But.... this was the only effort we could make. And we lost 4-1 and went back to the ship. This meant that we would be in time for the sailing contest. This was a greater succes. In fact we passed the finish way ahead of all the other ships. We learnt three things: first that tomorrow will be rain, second Monday the wind will change to south-west and this will mean another leg against the wind and third the people in Bergen are wonderful. During our stay here they so far have really looked after us. Organizing all kind of sports, providing plenty of hot showers and washing machines but most of all being kind and patient with us. Meanwhile Bobby and Andrew have been trying to fix the fuel pump. That is not an easy thing to do in a weekend in Norway. The oilrings have given up and it is impossible to get the proper-sized rings to the ship before we leave on Monday. But even there people are very helpful and trying to make the proper rings for us. The ship is a bit crowded, because the change of crew made it necessary to accomodate 20 persons. But, the weather being so good, the "old" crew members slept on deck under the sail. I hope the rain won't come too soon........"