Sailing trip to the internship

Hannes Frey already knows Norway from his Erasmus semester. He studied product and metal design at the HAWK Faculty of Design in Hildesheim. Now he can do an internship for recent graduates in Norway with a scholarship.
 "I really liked the country and the city of Bergen, so I got a foothold there," says Hannes about his decision to go to Norway again.

In addition, the sustainable journey is supported by the EU. In the Erasmus+ programme, which focuses on sustainability as well as inclusion and digitalisation, university graduates are funded for an internship in another EU country. The participants should be sensitised to the issues of sustainability, climate and environmental protection, says Annika Kerknawi, advisor at the HAWK's International Office: "Even though the top up for green travel is still relatively small at the moment, fortunately more and more of our outgoing students are trying to do without the plane and are becoming incredibly creative in doing so - like Mr Frey."

Sailing is just very appealing because it is a very original way of travelling, explains Hannes, who sees his journey to Norway on the one hand as a bit of a holiday, but also as an experience of slow travel. "The fact that you simply use the wind, i.e. energy that is already there, that you don't have to be transported by a machine at all, but steer and travel yourself, is simply incredibly fascinating," he says, summing up his impressions.
From Copenhagen, the boat heads north towards Norway for two and a half weeks. The sailing boat "Tilda" belongs to Charlotte Schneider - she also lives on the boat and studies in Kiel. The second passenger, Laura-Sophie Ahrens, is still enrolled at HAWK and is studying architecture at Bachelor level. Just like Hannes, Laura-Sophie doesn't have much sailing experience either: "The two of us were more or less the sailors on board, if you like," he says. All three are friends and made the plan to go on this tour about a year before - partly as a summer holiday, Frey as a holiday with a sustainable journey to his internship.  

The route leads along the Swedish coast: passing the islands and the Skagerrak, the sea between Denmark and Norway. Finally, they arrive in Oslo, the Norwegian capital. From there, the trio's path splits: "I disembarked in Oslofjord and got on the train to Bergen," says Hannes. Charlotte and Laura sail back to Kiel. Hannes has a five-month internship waiting for him.  Although the route further to Bergen is theoretically conceivable by sailboat, it would also be very demanding from a sailing point of view due to the weather towards the end of the year. He might be able to return to Germany in a friend's car, or he might stay and look for a job in Norway. But his decision has not yet been made.
He prepared himself, as he says, quite spontaneously: a good rain jacket was definitely included, but much is already available on board. At the harbour stops, they can get food and fresh water, and they sleep on board.  

What struck him in particular, he said, was that you need one thing above all else for this kind of travel: patience. "If the weather doesn't cooperate, you can't do anything: If there is no wind one day, then you can't go out, or you can try and maybe get ahead at a speed where someone could walk alongside," he says, describing the dependence on the forces of nature. But it has also happened that they have had to turn around - and then sailed for five hours for nothing.
In addition, you get to know each other very well on board, in a small space and over a long period of time. For Hannes, the best experience is definitely his arrival in Norway: "After two and a half weeks on the boat, entering the Oslo Fjord and seeing the Oslo skyline in front of you and thinking 'Wow, we're really there now'.”
But you don't have to fool yourself economically, says Hannes, because this way of travelling is not cheaper than flying. They share the costs as well as they can, and he says it keeps within reasonable limits.

"Ecologically, of course, the balance is quite good," Hannes sums up his personal CO2 footprint. Although the boat has a diesel engine, it is primarily used for entering and leaving the harbour. "Charlotte, our skipper, has also been very consistent in not using the diesel engine." Because it is apparently not unusual on a sailing boat to start the engine for hours at a time when there is a lull. "We haven't actually done anything like that. So we sailed virtually the whole way, except for the last risky spots just before the harbours."