Archive for January, 2020

Day 9 - 11 - Sunday 12 - Tuesday 13 January 2020 By Dominic Holling The first 7 days of our trip went by incredibly fast and it did not seem like we had been sailing across the Atlantic for a week. Although it felt short, each day was very different and we were all adjusting to life on board. Now it seems that we have reached a different stage of the trip. Daily routines have started to kick in and we have ... Read more

Day 8 - Saturday 11 January 2020 By Mika Wessels Our shift was amazing. Not only was it the first time on this journey that we didn’t wake up for our watch dead tired, but it was also the first time we stayed up and took on a part of the next watch pair’s time due to our sheer enjoyment of the surroundings. The time was spent conversing, surfing the waves and playing solitaire or soduko (of which I played so much that ... Read more

Day 7 - Friday 10 January 2020 By Dominic Holling 7th day into the race, one week of sailing to Rio done, and wow has it been an amazing trip so far. Having caught 2 fish, hitting a top speed of 12.5 knots, having witnessed many beautiful sunsets and sunrises and having dolphins off our bow. Day 7 was a good day. We have made a whole roster system for cooking and cleaning and have also made meal lists to use all of our ... Read more

Day 6 - Thursday 09 January 2020 By Daniel Skriker The challenge posed by the passage from Cape Town to Rio de Janeiro is the decision of how far north to sail before making the left turn towards Rio. If you turn too early, you might get stuck in the South Atlantic High, an area of the ocean that has light to no wind. If you turn too late, you’ll end up sailing an extra distance. The race thus far has certainly posed an ... Read more

Day 5 - Wednesday 08 January 2020 By Mika Wessels Waking up at 00:00 in the morning to do a two hour shift is sometimes difficult, but that’s when Josh and I have our shift. For the last couple of days it has been quiet. The wind has turned itself down a couple of notches these last two days, such that we have only managed to cover a third or fourth of the distance we usually do in a day. What that makes ... Read more

Day 4 - Tuesday 07 January 2020 By Max Elsworth and Nicholas Chapman. The fourth day was a good day for sailing. We managed to cover lots of ground and flew the spinnaker for most of the day. While traveling at a decent speed Max spotted an orange object off our bow to starboard. This turned into a mini mission as we tried to gybe round and pick it up, we found out as we got closer that it was an anchor buoy and ... Read more

Day 3 - Monday 06 January 2020 We woke up in the morning to a magnificent sunrise. The wind had picked up from the previous day and we were averaging about 6-7 knots. What woke those of us asleep up in the morning was Josh running around the boat and screaming with joy while shouting some numbers - we had just received our position from the race committee and needless to say we were more than happy with our progress. Instead of ... Read more

Day 2 - Sunday 05 January 2020 By Dominic Holling We woke up this morning noticing it was a bit cloudy and saw for the first day that we had lost our sight of land. The night watch was pleasant; there was still a gentle breeze blowing through and we had little speed. For most of the day the wind was averaging 8 knots. Nothing too eventful happened in the morning, besides Max seeing what he has dubbed, “a flying brown penguin”, circling ... Read more

Day 1 - Saturday 4 January 2020 - Race day! By Dominic Holling I woke up in my bed and realized that today we were to leave for the sailing trip to Rio that we have been preparing for. It was a hustle to get ready the last things, spend the last moments with family, before I left to the RCYC. We got there very early but there were already lots of people there hustling around the yacht club and getting ... Read more