32:53.726N 009:13.0618W
Telefonica Black
Lance Shepherd
Tue 14 Jan 2020 13:00
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IV - How no wind opens other doors
We are so sorry for our radio silence the last.. well
uh.. actually since we left the Marina of Gibraltar. Last night at around 2300
we were finally able to upload our position and the first 3 blogs. It must
have been very confusing for friends/families trying to follow us. No, it was
not you, it was us..
A couple of hours after we left the marina Lance tried
to send out an email. This email started 'bouncing around' as he calls it, using
all sat phone data in the process. We were not aware of this happening and
therefore had no means to prevent it. In order to purchase new data we needed to
be close to shore on 4G and we did just that off the coast of Casablanca. Using
Claire her hotspot Lance was able to upload the (backlog) in blogs but ran out
of Claire her data while trying to download the weather. It did not really
matter as we are were on engine and the prediction of 1,5 days ago still
seems to hold up.
Yesterday was a calm day. There were moments of
10-12 knots of wind but it was dominated with <6 knots which unfortunately
forced us to use the engine a lot. Being on engine though does open other doors
and I used this opportunity to ask the guys of shift 1 why they decided to come
on this trip. Shift 1 consists of Alex (UK - crew), Henrik (SWE), Erik (SWE),
Javier (ESP) and myself (NED). A very international bunch as you can see.
Henrik and Erik are sailing buddies from Sweden. They
met a couple of years ago when Erik moved to the area where Henrik already
lived. He wanted to be involved with the dinghy sailing programme at
the yachtclub and do some races on the bigger boats. A friendship was formed and
now they are always on the look out for sailing adventures. This year Henrik is
celebrating his 50th birthday, and Erik thought this to be a great moment to go
a little bit more extreme. They hope to find this on the VO70 Telefonica Black.
They are really keeping their fingers crossed for the predicted bigger winds
coming Tuesday and/or Wednesday.
The story of Javier is very different. He is not an
experienced sailor (yet) but definitely has ambitions. He really wants to learn
more about boat handling and working within a team. He loves being outdoors and
is just amazed by the power of the wind in combination with the
sails. 'Look around' he said. 'It almost feels as if we are the only people in
the world. There is not a boat in the area. I am truly loving this!'
His dream is to own his own sailing yacht and
(day) sail around Spain being totally autonomous. 'Maybe even further, but for
that I still have a lot to learn'.
So you see, the Telefonica Black experience is for
everyone. Stay tuned for more background information
tomorrow..
Angela
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