The mainsail knows how to put up a fight. “Keep pulling!” calls Helene Moodie, the co-captain on deck, as I battle against its weight. I cling onto the hoisting line tight enough to feel every fibre, and look up, tracing its course along the mast to the sail, 90 metres tall and like a stage curtain waiting to be lifted. “Keep pul-ling!” she instructs again, bringing my attention back to the task at hand. I heave with as much force as I can muster, throwing my entire body back. A last yank, and the show begins. The sail catches the wind, billowing full like surging swells. We’re on our way, fast and proud.
I’m spending six days onboard the Aaron, a 98ft, two-mast tall ship dating from 1906, sailing with a handful of other guests around Denmark’s South Funen Archipelago.
Located in the Baltic Sea off the mainland’s southeastern coast, it’s a compact group of 55 or so islands, some home to colourful, immaculately preserved port towns, some so diminutive you could walk their length in an hour. But as charming as the scenery is, it’s sailing a traditional boat that’s the main draw, and we’re letting it chart our course, drifting quite literally wherever the winds take us.
“Promising we’ll go here or there limits the sailing experience,” says Helene, now relaxing against the railing, the white cockle shell on a silver chain around her neck catching the light. Below her is a flat expanse of steely sea that stretches to the horizon, broken up occasionally by low-rising emerald isles. Her partner and co-captain, Gorm Bødker, is at the helm, the perfect image of an experienced sailor — gold loop earring, salt-bleached, wind-tousled hair and tanned skin that shifts to
