Punta del Este is in reach. Only a few hundred nautical miles are remaining until the end of leg 1. It has been a wild mix of conditions. Heavy upwind sailing in the Bay of Biscay was pretty uncomfortable. Then we had virtually no winds near the Canaries. And lately some great downwind sailing in the southern Trades. All this was paired with lots of defects. Some of which we could repair on board. A […]

The wind has turned a bit so that we make good speed towards the next stopover in Punta del Este. The reaching conditions (wind from side to aft) mean also our heel has reduced so the boat is much flatter. On the other hand we are rolling more from one side to the other as the waves pass through underneath us. With the slightly easier conditions we could also do our equator ceremony we had […]

We did it: the equator is crossed and we are on the Southern hemisphere. It was last Tuesday in the late evening hours. The display on the nav instruments changed from N for north to S for south. I was off watch and should have been asleep. But then you don’t cross the equator every day and especially not for the first time. So I got up on deck as did almost everyone else. But […]

The last two days were not as exciting. After the wind had died down, we started our engine. Since then we have been motor-sailing along. It looks like we have reached some winds south of the equator. So now we need to get ourselves in the best position before we are planning to switch off our engine later today. We will have reached the end of our motoring window and start to navigate with nothing […]

We have reached the doldrums. That’s the name of the inner tropical convergence zone, an area known for its notoriously light winds. And it features quite a few squalls, which typically come with stronger gusts. So to make progress in these light winds we are looking for and the following the squalls and their gusts. It might sound a bit contradictory after we ripped our spinnaker in a squall the other night. But here it […]

Currently one day is just as the other. We will pass the Cape Verdes in a few hours. The other boats are in the vicinity but the last position update we received put us last. This impacts the moral on board. In addition it gets warmer every day. During the day it is almost impossible to sleep below deck. And even during the night we often wake up covered in sweat. Disaster struck twice yesterday […]

The area around the Canaries was pretty tricky. Lots of wind holes and even more marine traffic made the passage difficult. And we took the wrong turn more than once. Some boats were only a few miles away and would get much better winds. This can be very frustrating at times. Then one night we were sailing along quite nicely with full main and spinnaker up. We spotted lightning on the horizon and decided to […]

We made good progress after the last three days. In a few hours we will pass the Canary Islands. Due to the weather forecast we have decided to pass inshore of the islands, meaning we will go through Fuerteventura and Lanzarote on one side and the African coast on the other. This is where we expect the best winds. We will thus pass Tenerife far outside our visibility. But it is still good to know […]

After yesterday’s briefing we finished our tasks onboard before heading out for dinner. I would be our last meal on firm grounds for presumably the next 28 days. So we got some Tappas, fresh fish and a big portion of dessert. Well fed we can start into this first ocean crossing race towards Uruguay. The day started then quite early. We still head to complete a few safety briefs before we were allowed to head […]