Finally under gennaker: Henrik Masekowitz 'Class 40
After a tough start, the 49-year-old single-handed sailor is now gaining speed. He fixed the initial males on board, and finally the wind also plays along. Since yesterday evening Masekowitz '"Croix du Sud" has been logging in a light aft wind between 8 and 10 knots.
Here are his thoughts on the first days at sea:
How do you plan a 130 day non-stop sailing trip? Very meticulous or rather true to the motto "It always turns out differently than you think anyway?" Well, it's not that casual after all. I rack my brains: What is on board, in what quantity, and according to what probability of occurrence of events such as defects or breakage? What falls into the "nice to have" category? So before the start, one or the other utensil goes back to Hamburg with you.
In fact, in the first week of my trip, I started, everything more or less planned with an "Okay, it'll be fine!" or "Well, hopefully that's enough !?" to replace. Or by a: "Where on earth is that?" This morning, for example, I was desperately looking for the liter of cooking oil so that I could prepare a fresh omelette with onions and cheese for the first time instead of the usual Trek’n Eat bag food. In vain. To forget!
But it's only been running slowly around here on board for the last two days.
At the start last Friday (official start time: 13.11.2015, 6h 18m 20s), huge waves surfed around the corner of Ile d'Ouessant with gusts of 35 knots of wind. "Nclass!", I thought to myself, "it starts well."
And in fact the weather turned out to be rather unreliable the following days, contrary to the forecast and routing. If I had counted on a loose neighbor as far as Cape Finisterre on the northern corner of Spain, instead a bad cross course with hard hits through the churned sea of the autumnal Biscay resulted for me.
Somehow I had in mind that this trip would need a break in LCoruñ, because somehow everything didn't come together right. My energy supply gave me problems. The diesel had to run twice a day to keep the batteries reasonably happy. The autopilot was just using too much power. In the meantime I have configured it a little differently and brought all available solar panels on deck. Now it works.
Further along the Portuguese coast, unfortunately, nothing with north wind. "No, of course," I thought to myself, "it's mid-November and then El Niño …". So keep crossing. But there is still more to come. Due to a very pronounced high near Lisbon, total calm was announced for 24 hours. I actually knew these near-shore weather conditions with the starboard tack, then a one to three hour break, and then on from port. Not like that here.
My nerves were on the edge. Not only because of the background noise, the flapping of the sails and the turning in circles, but also because you get the feeling of being trapped, condemned to crime. In addition, I read in an email that Joe Harris had also started - my American competitor in terms of the record.
He sails the same record attempt on his AkilariRC2, the successor design of my Akilaria, to and from Rode Island near New York. All sorts of things go through my head: what if he gets away better than me? Or maybe we meet …? All of a sudden, tremendous pressure that I urgently need to shake off. My deadline based on the current record is enough for me. This ends on March 30, 2016 at 02:20 in the morning.
The last two days it has finally been running. Head south at 8 to 10 kn under the gennaker. Today I pass the entrance to the Mediterranean. I leave the narrowness of Gibraltar on the left and leave the continent of Europe. I keep on course towards the Canary Islands, as I did in 2007 on my "Beijamar" during the mini-transat.
I feel better now and I think I've found a good rhythm between sleeping, eating and daytime work on the boat. It also gives me certainty that my hydrogen generator is now easily putting 20 amps into the batteries. Every day without a machine means one day more heating with diesel reserve for the Southern Ocean.
Best wishes Henrik