Sven Yrvindvideo
8 July 2025 Almost wrecked on the Irish coast
7 July 2025 · 16 min · 2K views
What this video covers
Sven Yrvind recounts a near-wreck on the Irish coast during a pre-GPS passage from Croisic, France, to Southwest Ireland aboard his 15-foot boat with crew Olga. After roughly 12 days at sea crossing the Bay of Biscay, he navigated by sextant and echo sounder in fog, then went below to sleep, leaving Olga to watch the sounder and wake him when land closed. She did — but only when cliffs were already directly overhead. Yrvind tacked immediately and cleared the danger; he never told Olga how close they came. They rounded Clear Island and entered Baltimore, Ireland, where customs cleared them by phone. Reprovisioning for a westward passage to Newfoundland against prevailing westerlies proved difficult: a local fruit wholesaler initially refused to sell to individuals until Yrvind declared them a ship bound for Newfoundland. They also dried out at Metco on a high tide to free a centerboard fouled by a mooring line. The segment opens with a separate workshop sequence: Yrvind and Petter build a mock-up sculling oar with a tension-based oarlock and a pivot-and-lift stowage mechanism, comparing the design to Chinese and Japanese yuloh oars that use a downhaul string as a thrust bearing.
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