Team Spirit of Hungary is on their way to Barcelona to continue preparations of the Hungarian Imoca 60 footer for the upcoming Transat Jacques Vabre 2015 double-handed transatlantic ocean sailing race, one of the most important stages of the Imoca Ocean Masters World Championship series. Nandor Fa is just out of the hospital after an operation and continues to work immediately, starting with a 1800 km car ride.

Good luck and have a safe journey!

Interview with Nandor Fa:

You are ready to start for Barcelona, car and trailer both fully packed. Are these the very last items to transport to the Port of Barcelona? What exactly are left to do?

Nandor:

“We look like a camel caravan, only its pulled by a car. The whole car and the trailer are full, in addition there are four of us traveling…so this one is not gonna be a very enjoyable and enviable ride all the way to Barcelona. We have the two daggerboards with all their compartments, the boom is finished and is here too, we have lots of ropes and lines, plenty of sails, the new keel bolts, and much more. Now we’ll try to finish the boat as much as we can, within one hard-working week.”

You barely even got out of the hospital after an operation, you already have a mast fitting in your hands and are about to leave for Barcelona. How do you do this?

Nandor:

“I’d felt some pain for about 4 days, then I decided to see the professor in the hospital and they diagnosed appendicitis. This is a lucky misfortune: I’m unlucky for having it but at the same time I’m lucky to have it now and not later. So they diagnosed it in the morning, I went back for the operation in the afternoon and in the evening I was already missing a bad appendix. This was the day before yesterday. They held me in for yesterday, I came out today in the morning and we are  here packing, preparing to drive to Barcelona. There is no more time… for sure it would be nice to rest for a few more days, but there is no time for that.”

What types of jobs are you planning to complete in Barcelona, how far do you think you’ll get with the preparations?

Nandor:

“In an ideal case, we can launch the boat by the end of this week. In another less fortunate case, we can still have a lot of things done: the hull and the keel, the mast to be assembled, we’ll see how it goes. I don’t want to launch the boat so fast at all costs, because this part of the harbour already has a vast sea area with significant waves and movements so we would have to be very careful for the boat not to bang itself anywhere. I believe this week is more or less enough for us to be done with everything.”