Day 7 – Friday 10 January 2020
Day 7 – Friday 10 January 2020
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 ...
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Day 6 – Thursday 09 January 2020
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 ...
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Day 5 – Wednesday 08 January 2020
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 ...
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Day 4 – Tuesday 07 January 2020
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 ...
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Day 3 – Monday 06 January 2020
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 ...
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Day 2 – Sunday 05 January 2020
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 ...
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Day 1 – Saturday 4 January 2020
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 ...
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Delivery day 22
Delivery day 22
S 34°33.250’ E 017°55.509’
Wild weather- you either love it, or you hate it. Riding the 2m swells in the 20-30 knot winds around the Cape of Storms show you exactly what you’re made of.
Some of us are jumping at the chance to helm, rising to the challenge of keeping the boat riding smoothly (and not bouncing on the waves, which feels like sledgehammers being taken to the hull from down below.) And the others have adopted the foetal position.
Doing ...
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Delivery day 21
Delivery day 21
S 35°17.946’ E 016°40.010
The crew are all eagerly watching the mileage as we close in on Cape Town, and they already plotting warm showers, massive English breakfasts and coffees.
Rob attempted more bean menu items for breakfast, and todays’ ventures were rated more highly than yesterday’s by the panel of judges, who all thoroughly enjoyed it.
During lunch, both fishing lines started whirring, and the crew rushed to find a nice double-catch of Skipjack tuna, about 5kgs each! The crew, especially ...
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Delivery day 20
Delivery day 20
S 35°27.606’ E 13°53.416’
The wind dropped during the night, and we had clear skies for the first time in a while. The slow bob at two knots made it difficult to stay awake.
But fear not- this is not a tale of tragedy, but rather a tale of triumph!
This morning everything went up; the winds picked up, the spinnaker was raised, our spirits soared, and our anticipation built. We reached our fastest speed for the delivery trip so far, a ...
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