Almost a bridge too low

Last night we pored over the charts and the weather forecasts to make a rough plan for the remaining 9 days before we are due at the boat's winter quarters. The policy now is to get south to within striking distance of Fehmarn in case of sustained foul weather. There are plenty of islands to visit south of Fyn.

There was fair weather today, NW F4-5, that's roughly behind us, therefore we have come south to Nyborg because it's a convenient stopover en route to Svendborg at the south end of Fyn. Nyborg does not feel as well to do as our previous ports, certainly in terms of the marina. It is one of the 'ferry towns' that wad blighted when they built the motorway bridges between the islands at the end of the 20th century. It has history though, being the ancient seat of the Danish parliament. 

The high point of today's 3 hour sail, or rather the low point was passing under one of these road & rail bridges. The top of our mast with aerials and wind vane is, according to Nic's calculations, 15 metres. The chart states the bridge has 18m at the centre of the arch, 16m by the pillars. The sea level can change by 1m depending on the weather and we were in 1m waves. So we head for the centre of the span, rolling along at 4kn with the wind behind us and the engine on in idle just in case. The pics don't do it justice of course and bridges always look close when you look up even if they are 40m ... but this must have been close, less than 10 feet to spare. Of course we could have taken a 7 mile detour to go under a different section thar has 65m clearance, but where's the fun in that? The sequence of pics could be entitled: thar she blows (with a coach for scale); oh ... really?!; AARGH; Nic smiles on the other side.