Færder Race, Oslo to Horten : Tips for Tide and Course

The Færder Seilas is a complete spectacle and unique in being over night racing with up to around 1000 Boats and over 6000 competitors! From the start in Down Town Oslo, Aker Brygge, through the Drøbak sound and out into the mouth of "The World's End" it provides challenges at every stage and some beautiful scenery under way.

There has always been a British contingent as crew, a handful of ex pat boat owners and a tiny smattering of visiting boats, often those doing a Scandinavian Odyssey such as "Tangle O' the Isles" from Oban who competed in the tour class. It was quite a surprise to see Joey Gough and wife entered and even more to bump into the friendly giant, Twig Olsen and son Alistair in the beer tent, having been more used to sailing around Oban with them.

So I thought it was worth doing an English version of my summated experiences of the Færder'n in respect of maybe a pretty serious team coming out with their boat, say an X35 or X41 from the UK, to compete in OD class, or a tour sailor with racing experience wanting to enjoy the experience and also maybe have a poke at some silverware.

The race is very often decided by a combination of boat speed and getting into the least tide. So here I wanted to share some knowledge of the tide with respect to other decisive factors, my sources being, for example  Seilas No 5 2013 , May and the racing instructions 2008.

On what authority do I write? Well we were one of only around 5% of the fleet who made it round the Færder lighthouse in 2007 when the sea breeze effect stood out at Bastøy and refused to kiss drøbak by the time the bar at Horten was open, leading to over 850 DNFs /RETs. I did that on a well turned out X362s and then the year after I did the race on a j109 and we ended up 16th boat overall, out of around 1000 boats on corrected time per course mile sailed.

Overall Tidal Strategy

The tide is modified or even annulled by the funnel effects of the fjord in a southerly or SE wind ( which is quite common in the summer), or a constant SW up the Skaggerakk. These will produce a top drift over the lunar tide. Conversely when the wind stops blowing after several days, then the emptying of the fjord in high pressure weather can fight the tide.

The tidal charts delivered in the racing instructions were wrong both times I have done the Færder, with the fjord being filled the first time and beginning to empty in the morning after painfully slow progress , 14 hours to get to Håøya or so.

Generally if you are sailing a beat down the fjord, and the wind has been up a few days, then you are going to be in surface current and you want to get out of this by using shallow water on the edges, and also further down past Drøbak, into the tidal shadow of the islands.

There is a tidal modified effect caused by Drammen fjord with its' major river. Here the main flood tide is trained into a massive back eddy at a shallows called " Mølen" - the mill maybe translated, and there can be a benefit in fighting the tide over to this effect although I will come back to this later.

If the boat is being delivered the day before from south of the Fjord or in the fjord, then I would recommend making tidal observations and even sailing south if you are based at Moss, Soon, Horten or Tønsberg for example to measure the tide and see if there is a surface drift effect. If you will motor up through drøbak on the day, but have time the day before, take the adjusted time for the tide you expect and go for a motor up the sound.

Start Area - AkerBrygge and the channel out past Bygdøy to the open Fjord.

The start can be influenced especially by a falling tide- there is also Akers River which could theoretically be pushing you out over the line too. You want a safe start and it is unlikely to you will actually be able to sail up to the line and back - you have to sight the line from the east end and then take it a bit cautiously - an OCS on a 70 + natucial mile race is to be avoided.

On the way out with tide coming in the sound towards Akerbrygge, many boats go right to pick up a possible back eddy from the bay there but eventually you have to try and stem the tide by going in from the middle. In a falling tide that is with you, it may also pay to go a little to one side if there is any sign of shipping traffic because the Færder GIVES WAY not the other way around. On one race in light airs this indeed happened to us and three fairly serious classes, we had to peel to each side to let a ferry or cruise ship past us all.

A bit of history here, Aker Brygge is now the shining sea front of Oslo, once Aker shipyards looking more like Clydebank than Manhattan. The start line is well within a nautical mile of both the national parliament and the royal palace.  The seafront will be lined with sailing fans and many a bemused tourist, as the seemingly endless procession of sails in dozens of different starts rolls over to starboard and heads out from the city.

Passing Bygdøy channel there are rocks and shelves on both sides which are not obvious, and one whale back on the bygdøy side can be sailed on the inside by boats with less than 2 meters draft, but that is for the very local knowledge as once again, you do not want to head off to what eventually is a very bumpy part of the open sea with any keel or rudder dammage.

Into the Fjord Itself

In a rising, incoming tide, the smart money goes thereafter right again, looking to get out of the main tide and over into possible back eddy and a possible lee bow lift from Lysaker River . Going over this way is however both a little longer to sail, it takes more tacks on a beat to get out past snarøya and you risk coming into wind shadows or divergent solar effects.  The alternative is to bang through the tide towards nesodden, which is a bit like Greenock, a head land marking the turning point of the main fjord into Bunnfjord like a great meat hook. Given that you can stand the headland on one tack from exiting the narrows then I saw this pay for i think the X99 class who are amongst the hottest local knowledge on the fjord. It is shorter and easier and in more wind often until you come into shadow and bend, which is out the tide and can be used to advantage.

On the West, RHS, snarøya does present a bit of shadow from the tide but you still have to come out and follow the racing instructions as per navigation boys and "Gåsunge" - goose chick rocks, which are to be left to PORT, and no short cut taken inside them as this is reserved for shipping. The next 'gathering' mark on the west side of the fjord towards Vollen or south also has the aim of training the fleet out of daytime traffic and giving ship skippers and pilots some rest and boat speed after their frought passage up Drøbak against the fleet there!

There can be a large wheel effect South of Snarøya with little tide penetrating inner fjord, and then you get the back eddy over to the west side of the fjord on the snarøy side if this effect is working, but you may sail shorter and easier to Gåsungene and then shoot over onto this.

So here you want to have sailed up on the day or the day before to consider the options for shadow of tide versus boat speed and the shortest way to sail - remember you must not enter the Bygdøy narrows on the day, that is a DSQ matter- you are corralled anticlockwise round the back of the beautiful Oslo bay islands which makes for a relaxing introduction to the whole carnival.

From this gathering mark west then, the big bets are placed on getting to the other side in a flow tide and creep up the east coast on a beat or under spinnaker to get into the Drøbak sound first, and hopefully then have separation from the following competitiors in your class and also any slower classes infront of you. It can take less than an hour to sail through the sound, but in 2007 for example, most of the fleet parked there for up to 8 hours in light wind and adverse tide.

Drøbak sound is usually tackled up the west Håøya side because it is pretty deep up the mainland side, but just where you enter the sound there can be advantage in going a way on that side, as it is shallow there, but deep enough for your keel in a 36 foot racer.

As you exit beware that there are shallows and a training wall on the southern extension of the island and it is best to exit clean as you can, following the wake of other, larger boats is a good bet for a visitor!

West of Håøy

A step back though! The geography is such that when the Fjord empties , the tide turns or the SSE wind dies after many days, then in fact the funnel of the west of Håøy fills first before Drøbak and this then comes down to a 100m wide exit at the south end. In 2007 we came to the head of Håøy island and saw the entire fleet parked up ahead of us, having been the heavy boat in the R36 class. We saw ONE boat partying on the West of Håøy and more importantly IN WIND, so we tacked over and sailed west of håøy. This took several hours and there seemed to be some adverse tide to begin with. However we could sail and we eventually went in a bit to stem the current. In the morning we crept into the exit channel to be completely surprised by a big ebb tide there of at least 3 knots, building to 4 or more as we exited on the shortest course to the next trip bouy. We either caught up some other brave west-of-håøyers or they had come over from Drøbak. Anyway, Sony Ericcsson, the swing keel VO60 got a bit panic on to get over to the obvious tide we were getting and promptly grounded on the banks south of Håøy and Kong Oscars Berg I mentioned above.

Håøy west is longer to sail and you risk being caught in a flood tide which is pretty impossible to escape as the exit narrows are difficult to get out of the main tide. However it is an option given that Drøbak sound is in light air with hundreds of boats to get round and the chance of an ebb tide setting in at the right time or already underway once you reach the headland at the North of the Island.


South to Moss / Horten and Beyond

Here in adverse tide you want to avoid the worst of the tide by going to the east and into the shadow and shallower water off Jeløya. At some point sailing around this though, you want to go over to the west side and Bastøy, the prison island, offers a reasonable point to shoot for.

Bastøy was a penal colony for young offenders and the excellent film "king of Bastøy" with Stellan Skarsård is well worth the subtitles.

You then have the choice of sailing inside the Bollærne islands, a feat not to be taken lightly in the dark- but it is likely to be late evening if there is good wind that you arrive here and sunset is not until about 21:40 at this time of year here! In a light airs night then you are also likely to get here in the new day.

Caution on this in good wind: we sailed against Blur the then j109 in another j109. They chose to take the Mølen wheel going left and then went inside the Bolærne, while we did Jåløy and shot over to Bastøy and then took the outside route in masses of wind.

At Færderen we rounded just behind Blur, and overtook them by going out into the better wind again, getting 12 knots boat speed in the swell and forcing them to change course to contend with us.

A compromise can be made - there is a lot of wind shadow inside the sounds of the Bolærne and if the wind is funnelled or convergent then you are going to have to tack a lot in restricted waters. This can make it slow going and hard work for a crew with many hours sailing behind them. On the outside when we sailed the X362S X'est la Vie, the reigning X332 champions (norwegians working in England) crept up the outside coast. We were happy as Larry Elison having followed the distant wake of 100 foot Wally Knut Frostad was on, in the sea breeze and 27'C , but in adverse tide out in the main channel! We knew there were very few in our class though Drøbak behind us, so a big placing overal was anticipated and we liked sailing along after 27 hours of light airs.

The Drøbak shallow side, Jåløy, Bastøy and inside the Bollaerne can be a cut and paste recipe for success given flood tide or wind drift top current, but don't take this for granted.

Round the Rock

Finally you should have by now worked out the days conditions and not forget the good old lunar tide in the almanac. A word of caution, there is a whole bag of tide round the lighthouse and you round a stalk in the water a good way south of it.  


Inwards towards Horten

Remember the lunar tide as I say, and also the shortest way to sail - both times we have gone eventually inside the Bollærne islands on a reaching course. On a rising tide the southward entrance to these islands trains the tide in a little to funnel but in lighter airs with a following tide you may be better heading out again for the true wind. 


At night and early morning there can be a night "land" breeze coming down from the north and west in summer high pressure conditions. This favours going inland as it lifts off the sea further out. It varies and seems to be the airs from two or three of the long valleys here emptying out from the cooling inland as the warm sea sucks it outward.  Horten then, can be in a windshadow or suddenly the last part become a beat, which is good for apparent wind. The shore is fairly clean on the west side if the tide has turned in these conditions, while in flood tide you are pretty much in the shadow of Bastøy and the land anyway.