Boat Diary

Ahoy there, adventurous souls! While our intrepid sailing hero, Alexander Grosskord, is currently navigating the open waters, charting a course through the boundless beauty of the sea, I, Noor Ul Huda, have the honour of exceeding a warm welcome to all of you on behalf of our seafaring friend. I am here as Alex's conduit ensuring that you, dear readers, are not left adrift in the sea of excitement as I have been entrusted with this exhilarating task of sharing every single wave, sunset, or moments of his extraordinary maritime adventure with you, guided by the vivid narratives of Alex himself.

So readers, fasten your seatbelts — or rather, secure your life vests — as we are going to dive into these stirring chronicles of Alex's sailing escapades. Welcome aboard fellas! Part 1

18th November:

Race starts!

What an exciting moment for everyone. At 10:30 all boat teams walked down the promenade of Victoria and Alfred Water Front and hundreds of people were cheering us up. At 12:15 Qingdao slipped the line and we left the marina where friends, and families said bon voyage to everyone. It was very nice that my mum was with me and cheered me and the team up along with all other spectators. Thanks Mum for being with me and for all the support to make this journey happen.

After all the boats left the marina, we had a sailing parade where all boats sailed in one line. We shot very nice pictures and it was very impressive to see the whole fleet.

After the parade, we had one more 'Man over Board' manoeuvre and it had shown again that any drill exercise paid off. This was the fastest MOB we ever did.

At 15:00 the race started. We had hoisted Yankee No. 1 along with the staysail. We were a bit overpowered but knew that the wind would ease soon. At any start, you could feel the electricity in the air. Overall, we had a good start and “Happy Watch” and then we ran the boat till 6 pm.

From 16:00, Mr. Will, our watch leader, put me on standby where you have to conduct duties below deck that included maintaining the log every hour, cleaning the heads (toilets) and pumping the bilges. As we are racing, every extra weight slows us down and surprisingly these 70 footer takes a lot of water.

19th November:

What a nice champagne sailing day. The breeze was a bit light and we changed constantly between the wind seeker and code 1. The crew motivation was good as with all the constant ongoing evolutions, everybody was busy and didn’t have any time to think about anything else. Every evolution is so physically demanding for the whole shift that after it, you just want to crush into your bunk and sleep it off.

20th November:

From a nice sunny champagne sailing day, we saw the clouds thickening far ahead of us. It was our shift to come onboard and I was a bit lightly dressed. Once I stepped into the cockpit, of course one big wave broke over me and I got soaking wet. Greetings by the sea.

Okay, it was time to change and get more serious with our heavy HPX Smock on. Within a short time, light rain started and the wind was picking up. In preparation of the upcoming front, we set reef one first and quickly changed to reef two.

And suddenly Poseidon opened for us the gates to the Southern Ocean and welcomed us in his way. The wind picked up quickly and we saw gust of 52 knots as the clouds showered on us. It rained like cats and dogs in pitch dark, and we ran with Yankee 3 and the third Reef in the main, and surfed down the waves with plus 20 knots on a broad reach. It was just insane and I can't remember if I have ever seen such conditions. Unfortunately we damaged one Clutch which was holding reef three and we didn’t have any spare parts to fix it. Not a big drama as we can fix the halyard on a winch, but annoying as the race just got started.

After our six hour shift we just crushed into our bunks and passed out immediately. I only thought how should we maintain this level for the next three weeks.

21st November:

We woke up and our shift was going to start. You could see that everybody was still tired from last night and to our surprise we got welcomed by the Sun and a nice steady breeze with 16 knots on a broad reach again. This was a welcoming opportunity for us to recover from yesterday and putting ourselves together again.