Take Off - Our first squall

Although the full moon lit our way so gently last night was quite unsmoothdue to wind changes all the time. We suspected several squalls so the spinnakerwent up and down all night in prevention. However we seemed everytime to “miss”them. This morning was a grey morning, no sunrise from the sea and heavy cloudsahead of us. However the heavy clouds were all along the horizon so we thoughtit was just normal rain. We sailed through it, got a bit wet, the wind wassteady and we thought this was smooth. The wind started to blow stronger and wasup to 30 knots when it then dropped gently down to 17 knots. And from nowhere astrong wind hit the boat, Jörgen stearing had difficulties in answering the windand the broach was inevitable. And then came the real rain – just like pouringhundreds of. read more...

Take Off - Leg 1 Santa Marta

We want to give the biggest THANKYOU to the Marina of Santa Marta, Michelangelo and his chandlery and to Andrew, Luisa, Stefano and Cecilia for all the lovely service and biggest help upon our arrival in Santa Marta. Coming in with a broken boom in two and an engine being down from day 2 from St Lucia to Santa Marta we were more than delighted to get all the help we needed to fix everything as quick as possible before the next departure. The first morning Michelangelo at the chandlery was on the spot fixing our engine. He saw our boom and asked if we need help to repair it …. well… eh yeah shoot go for it! Today, the day before departure we got our boom and what we can see it’s a whole boom again! We leave Santa Marta with a feeling of friendliness, high service, lovely people and. read more...

Take Off - A winning strategic decision!

Time: 9 dec 19.30 Position: 13:58.46N 59:35.25W Speed: 9 knots Distance sailed: 2610 NM Weather: ENE guessing windspeed 17-20 knots, beautiful night!   I was told today that I have missed out on giving our position in the blogso I guess that on the blog’s map we haven’t moved much.   So for our last blog on our way to St Lucia – these last 24h have beenheavenlike! This morning the wind took more speed just before sunrise. I couldhear the guys in the cockpit shouting “wouahhhhh we are surfing at 16,4knots!!!!” with Johan stearing. Johan has actually always been the lucky one tomanage to stear during the speed toppings?... The rest of the day  the windhas been stable at around 12-15 knots and spinacker 3 has shown to be moretenance than we thought it would be.   Every. read more...

Take Off - Wet and dry

Last night  the guys sailed zick zack in between the squalls so the3rd spinacker was set up and down 6 or 7 times. In the long run there was noquality in neither the sailing nor the sleeping...  so they decided to dropit and rely on the genua. This morning was more grey than grey and we entered a big squall. More rainthan wind and it rained heavily (buckets!!!) for 1½ hour. We had installed awindscoop to catch in fresh air from the top through the roof into the saloon.However the windscoop turned more into a waterscoop and it was pretty wet insideas outside the boat. Luckily once the sun shows up things starts to dry quitequickly. A few days ago we really wished for less wind, well we got it this morning.The wind was weak however the waves still strong which is really. read more...

Take Off - A day full of happenings!

After yesterday’s challenges the guys got a quite undramatic night. Westarted the day off with family Wennberg’s seashower in the cockpit withscreaming kids. They didn’t really appreciate the heavy shower of salt waterfrom the bucket....However someone rewarded them for being so brave as we afterwards got tosee some DOLPHINS!! 5 quite small dolphins swam and jumped ahead of the boat.Really fun!Before lunch we reached 500 NM left to St Lucia which we celebrated withcava. After lunch Nils took a new chance at fishing and finally got our firstfish on the hook! It must have been a hungry one managing to be hooked at 8knots speed .The fish had no chance to battle with us in the sea, it totally surfed on top ofthe waves when we hauled it in at 8 knots. That was a very proud Nils fishing. read more...