Author: Ulrich Fingscheidt

The ship and the sailor have arrived in Horta on Faial in one piece. Nothing broken, all good. I am happy, proud and tired. Thank you for following me. The next leg (Azores-France) will start mid of July. See you then!

I am sailing upwind in the nicest conditions ever. 60 nm to go, I can’t see the Pico volcano (2351 m) yet.

Since two weeks I see an Atlantic Portuguese man o’ war (Physalia physalis, Portugiesische Galeere) every ten minutes. They have a sail-like shape and an air bubble, and drift on the surface of the sea. Since their long blue tentacles sometimes wrap around the line of my hydrogenerator I started using gloves when retrieving the line. They sting a lot!

No wind here. Do you remember when I was in the ITCZ (doldrums)? The air that raised up vertically there has travelled north. Here, this air from the equator is sinking down again. The result is a high-pressure area which you know as Azores High. The air is now ready to travel south again, forming the passat wind. At the equator the air will be heated up by the intense sun, raise up vertically, and the cycle will start again. I am now in the Horse Latitudes, the Azores High is notorious for no wind. Rumour has it, that back in the days of tall sailing ships, food for the horses (for that wild west thing) was finished and the poor horses were thrown overboard. Thus the name Horse Latitudes. Don’t worry, I don’t have any horses on board.

I am in the horse latitudes. No wind, sunny, the engine is burning diesel. I have used 1 cm of diesel in the last 6 hours. 13 cm (70 l) are still in the tank. I have an additional 90 l in jerrycans. I am using about 2 l per hour at a speed of 4 kn. So I will reach the Azores even if there will be no wind at all.

The question is who will arrive in Faial first, Kirsten or me. On my last trip to the Azores, when we met, I was there half a day earlier. This was in 2000, when Kirsten, Merle, Jonathan and I had a wonderful time on the archipelago.

I’m sailing downwind in nice weather now. For four days I was moving northeast, together with a nasty front. This picture gives you an idea of the conditions in the front that somewhat drained my energy.

Magnificient skies at 5:00 h in the morning. Peacefully the wind will decrease soon to 4 kn. Then I will start the engine to make some fresh CO2.

The waves from the side are driving me crazy. They cause Easy to roll. This leads to both sails loosing their shape and then banging and slapping. This causes a lot of wear and tear of the rig. Nothing I can do but pray for wind.

In the evwning I my speed dropped below 3 kn. I decided to raise the mainsail despite the instable front conditions. While working at the mast there was a short blink of light, I hoped it was a reflexion of my deck floodlight. When the sail was up and all was tidied up I noted a flash in the clouds in the far distance ahead of me. On the satellite picture was frequent lightning ahead of me. The front moved slowly eastward. I altered my course slightly to the north, frightened but hoping the front would keep moving. Every time I woke up the lightnings were still there. Only in the morning hours the situation improved.