status update thursday 20 May

Satelite internet doesn't work, damned.
So have to wait till when we are close enough to shore to send a post out.
Sending video's wont be possible today.

Thanks to Jan's trick we are still going quite well. Only 6.5knots now but there is almost no wind.
We will sail through the night trying to get to ijmuiden tomorrow in time to have a party with whatever dutch guy who wants to join us there (or belgium).

Looks like we will have to use the engine at a certain point in time, wind is dying on us.

This morning was exciting but not easy.
We left Tuxhaven with 25-28 knots of wind.
We had to motor for 3 hours against the wind trying to get out next to a very bussy shipping lane.
It was cold and way too early (5.00am).

Once out of the Elbe we got nice waves (3m) and good wind. The boat was doing great.
I was steering trying not to get sick. Jan took over around 10.00am and I went to bed for a couple of hours trying to sleep while the boat goes up and down 2m.
Got seasick again. Why the hell do I like boats, they allways make me sick.

Jan, Mario & Rupert were battling the wind we were still going a little upwind and had to tack.
We are tacking a full day know but its not completely against the wind, we just can't go parrallel with the cost so always have to tack to go back into the sea and loose it again.

I felt bad till 15.00h or so, wondering why I  like boats.
Jan has a smile on his face for the full day already and is constantly tweaking the sails, I think he recognises linux in it, needs as much work to keep it going.

In the afternoon between 15.00h & 19.00h we didn't make that much progress.
In the morning we had an average of maybe 12 knots in the afternoon I don't want to know.

Know we are doing well thanks to Jan's trick.

Right now Rupert is coocking again, we always get lovely english specialties, .... )-:
It's quite funny though we bought all our food in denmark and now we have to figure out how to cook it.
Most of the things we want to cook need ingredients which we don't have or don't understand.

Anyhow we drunk some whisky cola's to forget our misery (-: and everything looks bright again.

Our ETA for Ijmuiden is now 18.00h tomorrow, hopefully we make it, we will just keep on going through the night taking shifts.

Regards

Rupert, Mario, Jan, Kristof

impossible but true

wind was dropping to 4-5 knots
we didn't make any progress any more
jan had a brilliant idea, why not use 3 sails in stead of 2
hmmm, weird idea and definately not designed todo so

we tried it anyhow

we mounted the code0 sail behind the jib, very weird construction

now comes the weirdest part, it works

we are doing 7.5 knots in virtually no wind, our estimate 4-5 knots of wind maximum.

we know have 155 m2 sail on the boat.

some fotos to demonstrate the weird setup:

missing pilot on dragonfly

kristof in control (-; on dragonfly, or maybe ...

Trying to leave tuxhaven

team ready to start (Rupert takes foto)

we tried very hard to get into open sea was going really slow
there was about 20-25 knots of wind blowing straight at us
we waited for current to turn which it did but still then we only did 2-4 knots

You can see how slowly we pass a traffic scheme bouy



The autopilot is a fantastic piece of equipment, can drive the boat much better than a human can do.
Look at how it controls the rudder.

As read in previous post, the police caught us after 1.5 hours and we had to return to the marina.
The waves on the open sea are 3.5+ m.
Hoping that it will be better tomorrow.

police sends dragonfly back to marina

waves on sea 3.5+m
sideshore
which means side of trimaran goes 3.5 m up and down, surfing down the waves

was very hard to get to the sea anyhow because of serious wind

dragonfly front view (Elbe river Germany)