The last few days of the race past in the blink of an eye. Although we had pretty low winds after rounding Ireland. As a result the course for the race was shortened. So we would not make a trip across the channel towards France as it was originally planned. Instead we would head directly for the finish line off the east coast of the Isle of Wight. But the English Channel remained very calm. […]
Continue readingTag Archives: Team Tongyeong
Groundhog Day
The race from Qingdao, China to Tongyeong, South Korea is the shortest race of our circumnavigation. This stage was supposed to take between four and five days, covering almost 500 nautical miles on the way. For us this would anyhow be a very special race as we are representing the Korean coastal city on our journey around the world. In addition we are the first round the world yacht race to come to South Korea. […]
Continue readingFirst podium finish?!?
After the start the next intermediate goal was the Ocean Sprint. Once again there were bonus points waiting for those boats, which would pass between two virtual lines the fastest. In our case it was the latitudes 23 degrees north and 26 degrees north. However, this time the race course was not passing between those lines directly but with an angle, even having additional course marks placed in the zone. This opened the field for […]
Continue readingAfter one week at sea…
The first week was quite tough. The wind was either very strong or very light. Overall the progress was not as we had hoped. On the eighth day at sea we started the generator as we do every day. This is routinely done by the engineer of the day, which keeps rotating every day. When I got up, I tried to start the watermaker to refill our water tanks. As running out of water is […]
Continue readingArrival to Fremantle
We arrived to Fremantle, Australia last Tuesday, just 23 days after we had left Cape Town. Although we were only one day and just under eight hours behind the leader, this meant place nine. This is not what we had hoped for nor does it reflect the work we put into this race. However, we try to focus on the positive take aways, of which there are many. Our passage from Cape Town to Fremantle […]
Continue readingReady to go: Course Cape Town
Arrival The last few days in Punta del Este have been very exhausting. Firstly, our arrival kept dragging out. Two days before the arrival we had hoped to come in on Sunday morning. On Saturday it became clear that we would not arrive before Sunday lunchtime. Then the wind turned in the night to Sunday which meant that we would be beating upwind for the last couple of hours. This was another uncomfortable ride, given […]
Continue readingThe downsides
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 […]
Continue readingLast Push towards Punta del Este
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 […]
Continue readingUpside Down
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 […]
Continue readingDoldrums’ Corridor
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 […]
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