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93 days 22 hours 52 minutes

Nandor Fa skipper’s Log 01 30 2015. The Southern Ocean punched me in the nose immediately, and I picked up the gauntlet.

 Incredible that it’s been one month already and we are here … Our souls are have been “besoutherned”.

Nandor Fa Log1: 01 30, in the night  “Incredible that it’s been one month already and we are here, although we could be a little bit more ahead. Our souls are have been “besoutherned”.

As a first reaction when the PLC (computer that controls the keel) burnt down, I thought we should stop in Cape Town to replace it (a pitstop is allowed in the race). Then with Peter’s help, we managed to put together how to continue. Now I hope it will work easily and will be reliable. Stopping was an alternative for like 5 minutes — and then as you can see our progress on the Tracker, there is no way we would stop, we keep going forward with all our powers.

Surprising that besides so much mental and physical strain, I am not tired at all, what’s more, I am even more motivated than at the start. BUT ! I can feel what the 100% performance demands from you nowadays. It is very different to imagine all this from home, even with my ocean sailing history. To be here now, and live the Southern Oceans, is very different.

The Southern Ocean punched me in the nose immediately, and I picked up the gauntlet. We can motivate each other with C very well. He is very tough, he might be incredibly complicated for others, but we can strengthen each other very well. He cannot bear laziness and mediocrity either, just like me. We push it hard every day, as mush as we can, controlling our timing  of food and rests very strictly. This is why we both came here!

Nandor Fa Log2 30th January 11 45 GMT

During the night we progressed quite well with the sail-combination, there were no strong gusts, we had stable conditions. It got lighter by the morning. By the time C woke up, we had to hoist the reacher, we are progressing very well since then.

By now, I have figured out what it is we are doing here. We are sailing, of course, but how. Although I had information about how sailing had changed in general – especially our genre – but now I realize just how markedly. We have been using the routing and the sail-chart, now the two combined, still the picture hasn’t been complete what this all means, until we got to the Southern waters. We’ve been running fast for 3 days, and this is not the kind of speed that I was used to back then. There is a given boat which was designed to the max potentials, concentrated mainly on reaching, huge righting moment, sliding-shaped hull, light, specially designed enormous sails. All these parameters are in the polar curve and in the sail chart, the computer ruthlessly shows what the boat is capable of, and what you are doing in contrast.

I had to face that today’s performance is even further beyond our human comfort limit — even us, who are used to this and love to do this, our comfort limit too. We are running in the night, among huge waves somewhere down in the South, within sinister thunder clouds, with a speed above 20 knots, you are far beyond what is considered as safe. In your mind, you are patting on your own shoulder saying you are doing awesome, and then you look at that frigging Adrena which shows you need to un-reef and put reacher instead of the solent because you are underperforming. And you don’t have the consolation of arriving soon, because we will only arrive in three months.

For sure, this sport need young guys, whose nerves and knowledge is developing in this direction. No wonder that my generation is not at the top any more here.

By  the afternoon we had to change for A3. Otherwise everything is all right, although we are enjoying the pervious strong wind’s waves in a much lighter wind.

We decided to charge our accumulators with the engine, we turn them on for a few hours. We can also dry our wet socks, perhaps boots on the warm engine. Since the start only 12 litres of fuel was used of 210 litres — we are doing good from this aspect. The hydro-generator is fantastic, constantly charging, doesn’t always have to be down.

at 19 10 GMT our position is 42° 24,4′ S, 003° 59,9′ W.

C is having a rest, I grabbed my spaghetti which I’ve been soaking for 15 mins. Now we go between 9 — 12 kts, we will gybe sometime around dawn and we are expecting the wind to become a stronger Northerly by tomorrow afternoon. We are ready for an other run, looking forward to it.”

N.F.