Several magazine articles have described the Limfjord simply as a short cut to the Baltic (for example, 'Roundabout Denmark' in PBO No 187, page 47). Kevin Seymour recently used the words "it (the Limfjord) was quite beautiful and with so many small harbours and delightful anchorages we promised ourselves we would cruise the Limfjord, rather than use it as an access route" (see July 1991 Cruising Magazine - No 36). After reading these articles, it seemed to my wife and I, that the Limfjord might be an ideal cruising area for the trailer sailor and we decided to see if this was true.

The Limfjord is Denmark's longest fjord cutting 80 miles across northern Denmark from Thyboron on the North Sea to Hals on the Kattegat. It contains several large expanses of water and a number of unspoilt islands. In most areas the water depth is less than 8 meters and being fairly shallow and nearly landlocked, the waves never build up to any size even though northern Denmark is noted for its strong winds.

We started planning our trip during the long dark winter evenings, but it was difficult to find good information on cruising the Limfjord. Mark Brackenbury's Baltic Southwest Pilot was a good start, but our copy was printed in 1983. A visit to the Danish tourist office in London produced a number of tourist brochures and a very useful leaflet called 'Sailing on the Limfjord' which contained a list of 27 yachting harbours.

Our first priority was to locate a suitable place for launching the boat and parking the car and trailer. We were looking for a harbour with a good concrete slipway extending to a water depth of about 1m. Unfortunately the leaflet did not contain this kind of detail but only indicated the harbours with either a slipway or crane. Past experience of trailing has taught us that continental slipways often disappear into gooey mud or have a vertical drop 2 inches below the water. Many slipways are only suitable for launching a small boat or dinghy. We really needed a book describing the available slipways in greater detail. A continental version of "Where to launch your Boat" would have been very useful.

After examining all our available information we were still none the wiser and so decided to write to the 3 largest harbours which appeared suitable. Two of these replied in English and so earned bonus points in our selection procedure. It is reassuring to know that when you arrive after a 2 day road journey, you will be able to communicate in English rather than have to struggle with the dictionary and phrase book. Having discovered that Danish pronunciation was difficult, we did not relish the thought of discussing launching procedures and safe parking for the car and trailer in pigeon Danish !

In the end we selected the town of Struer for launching; it had marina berths for 550 boats, an English speaking harbour master, was geographically convenient and possessed either a slipway of a crane (we could not tell which from our information).

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