Guest of the Week: Ole Lundberg, sailor and houseboat owner

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Ole Lundberg is from Åland, but has spent much of his life at sea. Already at the age of 13 he joined a ship and since then he has worked on countless ships, trained as a sea captain and visited all continents. Today, Ole lives a quieter life with his wife in Åland, but the sea still beckons!

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Ole has built his own houseboat, and during the ice-free season the couple spends a lot of time travelling around in it. You can read about life on the houseboat and various seafaring memories on the blog (B)logbook, where Ole writes under his alias "Captain Haddock". We want to know more, of course, and have asked Ole eight curious questions about the houseboat and life at sea.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself? Who are you and where do you live?

My name is Ole Lundberg. I live in Åland, about one kilometre from Kastelholm Castle, on the shore of Slottsundet which leads from the sea bay Lumparn northwards to the castle ruins. My wife, life and travel companion is Birgitta and we are both 73.

How did you become a sailor and what was life as a sailor like when you were young?

Almost all working-class boys from Åland went to sea in their early teens. In the 1950s there was no other choice. If you didn't want to be a farmer's son or a lumberjack, you just had to go to sea or move to Sweden and look for a job, which many did, especially girls.

The Ålanders have always been a seafaring people. "The sea is our way", we usually say, and our great shipowner Gustaf Erikson, whose fleet of sailing ships was the proudest and largest in the world, raised many famous captains and inspired young boys to choose seafaring. Shipping has made Åland a prosperous society.

I went to sea at the age of fifteen. By this I mean that I went to sea on the high seas and to foreign countries. Actually, I started my seafaring career at the age of thirteen when, during the summer holidays, I served as a deck and cook boy on a galley with which we transported wood from Åland to Turku. Life as a young sailor was tough at times, but you learnt cleanliness and discipline.

After a few years on Åland ships, I went to Norway. The adventure beckoned. Norway's merchant fleet was one of the largest in the world at that time. The ships travelled all over the globe. At the seamen's agency in Oslo, you could choose which part of the world you wanted to see. On Norwegian ships, I sailed (we say 'sail', even though we now 'sail' with diesel engines) for many years while studying to be a sea captain between sea duty.

What kind of boats have you worked on and where have you travelled as a sailor? Tell us!

I have worked on many types of ships, big and small, bulk carriers, general cargo ships, passenger ships, tankers and I have visited every continent except Antarctica. I even worked as chief mate on a boat on which we transported live sheep from Australia to Iran. Shipping live animals in this way is heavily criticised today. I was also the skipper of an Åland tugboat in the nineties.

What is the best thing about working at sea?

The best thing about working long distance was that I got to see the world. And the long holidays when my wife and I explored Europe by car. We made many car journeys, everything from the North Cape to the Italian boot heel. We never had a camper van, just an ordinary van that could be spliced in with a tent in the back or at the side door.

What is the worst thing you experienced during your years as a seafarer?

I think the worst thing that happens on a boat is when a shipmate is injured and dies. I have experienced that three times.

Can you tell us a bit about your houseboat? What is its history and how does living in it work?

A friend gave me, almost for free, a rickety caravan. I had often grumbled angrily about caravans on the road during our car journeys, so I told my wife that we would never take that on the road. We put it on the water. Whereupon I built a large deck on two pontoons, hung a 15-horsepower outboard motor at one end, lifted the caravan aboard and we had a comfortable houseboat with which we buzzed along at 3.5 knots.

We used the floating caravan as a leisure craft for 13 years. We liked that life so much that we decided to build a bigger houseboat that went a bit faster. And when I took a job on an Åland road ferry in 2000 to pass the time until retirement in peace and quiet, I started building in my spare time. It took two years to complete our new travelling holiday home. It was a success.

On board there is everything you could ask for in a comfortable holiday home: a gas-powered cooker and fridge, a mini-sauna for two people, a moulded toilet, a solar panel with batteries providing plenty of power for lighting, a computer, a hairdryer, charging electronic devices and so on.

How does it work to travel around with a moving houseboat and where have you travelled with the houseboat?

Travelling with a floating summer house is the best form of boating. Träflyte (that's her name) is no wonder when it comes to coping with harsh weather at sea, but in today's world we always have good weather reports on our phones and tablets. We choose our routes according to what the winds allow and in the Archipelago Sea, the archipelago between Åland and Finland, there are tens of thousands of islands which all have a leeward side when the wind blows. The waters are perfect for houseboats. There is always a quiet bay to anchor in.

We have many favourite bays in the Åland archipelago where we usually go, anchor and stay a few nights. We live in the countryside but every late summer we usually stay for a week in our houseboat in the town of Mariehamn, in a guest harbour there. Over the years we have visited most of the towns and guest harbours of importance in the Archipelago Sea between Hanko in the east and Uusikaupunki in the northwest. Our cruising speed is 5 knots.

Finally, a question we ask everyone we interview: What is your dream destination?

Since retirement, we have travelled by charter to Thailand and for many years we've spent a few weeks in Gran Canaria but we've cut back on charter travel. I've seen so much of the world so the tourist resorts don't hold much appeal.

Finally: Ole Lundberg's own film about a day on the houseboat "Träflyte".

Thank you Ole Lundberg for sharing your experiences and thoughts!

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