Vesterhavet: A 1927 Shark Cutter's Journey Home
Old World in the New Age
After acquiring his dream boat four decades ago in Denmark, this Pacific Northwest native took her home the long way. He’s been doing a refit ever since.
Photo: Norris Comer
In the late 1980s, Washington state native Brett Snow was living and working in Denmark as a shipwright, having studied at the Northwest School of Wooden BoatBuilding in Port Townsend.
“After a year and a half at the boatbuilding school, I decided I wanted to be an engineer,” Snow says. He then became disillusioned with academics and decided to travel. “I dropped out of school and thought I’d go to Europe for six months. Three years later, I was still in Europe.”
He found work that he liked caulking and replacing planks. The first time he saw Vesterhavet was by chance, as part of a boat-gawking bus trip to Bornholm, an island in the Baltic Sea. Snow recalls being seduced by what the Danes call hajkutter, or “shark cutter” features.
Looking down into the forward deck entrance in the forepeak.
Photo: Norris Comer
“The first thing anybody sees on a boat that’s looking at boats and knows boats is the sheerline,” Snow says. “You could just see from across the harbor that it looked good.”
Vesterhavet, he later learned, was a fishing vessel built in Skagen in 1927 for chasing cod, salmon and herring. In the 1970s, an aluminum house was installed. Another selling point: her engine room, wheelhouse electronics and electrical system, which all were replaced in 1977.
He was the new owner a couple of weeks later. After mechanical inspections and ensuring that she was seaworthy, Snow set out for a maiden voyage to Copenhagen.
The view from the the wheelhouse. The large hatch to what was one the fish hold (shown covered in plywood) will be covered with a new aluminum skylight.
Photo: Norris Comer
“I’d never driven a boat before of that size,” he says. “And I’d never driven a boat like that in the wintertime on the ocean. I learned about the Baltic Sea on that trip.”
Not being fluent in Danish was a manageable challenge, he adds: “The Danish navigation charts are works of art, in my opinion.”
And with that, Snow’s new life living aboard Vesterhavet began, with a goal to return her to the United States on her own bottom.
The Long Way Home
Snow rallied a crew to make some changes to Vesterhavet before shoving off. They removed fishing gear, converted the cavernous fish hold into living space, and replaced the cracked rudder. They also installed a mast from a Copenhagen schooner that was later removed.
Vesterhavet left Copenhagen, bound for the Kiel Canal that runs through Germany and into the North Sea. They transited the English Channel, making stops here and there before reaching Spain and Portugal.
“Porto was a pretty cool place,” Snow says. “We tied up at a shipyard that was very old … back to Columbus times. If we stopped somewhere and we liked it, we’d stay.”
Gallery: Vesterhavet's Journey Home
The transatlantic crossing from the Cape Verde Islands was “basically idle” at 9 knots to Trinidad. Snow says 6 to 7 knots was her most economical speed, but Vesterhavet typically cruises at 8 knots and can push to 10 knots. Her 1,500-gallon fuel capacity was more than enough for the crossing.
Vesterhavet steamed onward from Trinidad through Venezuela, where they hauled out for maintenance and filled up on diesel—very cheap at the time. After Colombia and transiting the Panama Canal, they headed up North America’s west coast to Seattle.
All told, the trip took Snow and his crew two years. “When cruising, it’s really good not to be in a hurry,” he says. “If [you’re] in a hurry, take a plane.”
He didn’t expect her new homeport of Seattle to be his permanent home (“I thought I’d be here for six months or a year, and it turned into 30 years”), but the tradesman began working as a shipwright. His first foray into aluminum fabricating was a project on Vesterhavet.
“That was quite a large job,” he says. Fifteen planks, 10 frames, the deck beams, the entire deck and all the coamings were replaced. He bought his first welding machine, and a friend showed him how to use it, building an aft house extension. “That was my first aluminum project.”
Today, Snow & Company is a bustling shop that employs dozens of marine tradespeople who build a range of salty projects, from commercial boats and pilot boats to oyster farming platforms.
Berths in the forepeak, basically unchanged for nearly a century.
Photo: Norris Comer
Between running a business, getting married and starting a family, Snow had little time to work on Vesterhavet, which largely sat idle during the past decade. But with the help of one of his daughters, the boat is starting to come back together.
“She was home from college, and we were down changing out a bilge pump,” he says. “We noticed some pretty punky wood.” Two plank replacements turned into seven, then turned into 12. Snow, his daughter and their friends spent their free time getting the hull shipshape in the company yard.
It was a great project for me and my daughter,” Snow says. “We had a very good time. … A lot of learning went on, but a whole lot of pride when we finished the project and put it in the water.”
“It’s [Vesterhavet] kind of starting to come back to life,” he says during a walkthrough. The U-shape galley now has a cabinetry system where drawers can be opened on either side of the counter. The extended house encompasses the stern with a dinette that accommodates family dinner. From the stern, guests can walk forward onto the deck, up into the wheelhouse or into the engine room below.
The open, airy galley and salon with a dinette.
Photo: Norris Comer
The 270-hp Scania DSI 11 engine was installed in 1977, mated to a custom variable-pitch prop with a Rapp Fjellhamar reduction gear. The original was a three-cylinder model made in the northern Denmark port of Sæby. “The second engine was a Hundested, which is also a small town in Denmark,” he says. “I think there were about 15 different engine manufacturers in Denmark in small towns. They would cast their parts and do their machining and build their engines.”
The boat’s deck is open, and a new skylight will be fabricated from aluminum. A forward hatch leads down into the forepeak guest bunks. The floorboards are removed, and a deep clean post-planking is on the to-do list. The fish hold-turned-salon is amidships, bare and dark until refurbishing. The versatile space could contain pretty much anything from seating to additional berths.
They hope to get the boat finished in time to celebrate the 100th year of her splashing. “Vesterhavet’s centennial is a couple years away,” Snow says. “Might be a reason for a party.”
Snow at the helm. The refitted wheelhouse was one of her selling points when he acquired her all those years ago.
Photo: Norris Comer
Vesterhavet Specifications:
LOA: 60ft.
Beam: 16ft.
Draft: 9ft.
Displacement: 160,000 lbs.
Construction: Oak planking, sawn oak frame, aluminum house and bulwarks
Fuel: 1,500 gal.
Water: 300 gal.
Engine: 1x 270-hp Scania DSI 11
