Light Winds

The Class A ship Astrid and the Class B vessel, Tecla, both from the Netherlands, have sent in updates from on board. First from Willem van der Wel on Astrid: 

“With a spectacular start of the day racing close to Tenacious, the day was dominated by light or no wind. But the morale on board is high as we are 1st of our class! The first night of the race was good to us as during the 0-4 watch we overtook Kaliakra who was 5 miles to the west of us, becalmed, while we were sailing at a steady 4 knots. 

“At yesterday’s mornings position report the fleet seemed to be very close, and we received the good news that we were 1st. And although at 0200 we made the first logbook entry with a speed of over 1 knot in 8 hours we seem to be doing well. As far as we can see, all the ships are in the same situation.

With the trainees watching out for shooting stars I hope one of them wishes for better winds.”

Janette Sluik on board Tecla reports:

“The night before last was a good one with some beautiful sailing, up to 9 knots of turning winds, which is good for us and allowed us to have the sails on the right side. 

“But this is the Mediterranean Sea, the wind can drop down to nothing in minutes and that is what happened happened at 0300 the night before last. It picked up again yesterday morning at 0800 and turned from NW to NE so we needed all hands on deck to gibe. Luckily, this is the time the watch changes, but it is also breakfast time which means plenty of people, but they are hungry! Some protested and didn’t like working with an empty stomach, but in a race the ship always comes first. 

“The fleet is still very close to each other. We can see at least six ships, and that makes it nice on the one hand but  also means that the placings in the regatta differ by every mile of separation because many ships have almost the same rating. 

“At the time of writing we have a speed of 0.9 knots, a speed we have been doing for several hours now. Palinuro has already retired. More ships are whispering about it.  But we still hope for wind, it does not matter from which direction as long we do not have to motor because the race has only just started and a race of only two days would be too short.

We are now second in our class and third over all, but that can change any minute, it depends on who is the fasted drifter to night.”

To track the fleet as they race click here

To view the current placings in the race click here

The Garibaldi Tall Ships Regatta is organised by Sail Training International.