Charlie Dalin, Apivia speaks of his Cape Horn rounding; " The passage of Cape Horn went well at around 4 am and about 6 miles offshore, it was still dark but it was not pitch black so I could see it so the half-light, the shadow of the rock, I could see the lights of the lighthouse, it was a rather cool moment for my first rounding of the Horn, with quite a lot of sea, a clear sky strewn with squalls, a beautiful moon. I called the lighthouse keeper so we could exchange a few words even if I didn't always understand what he was saying, it was nice.
I celebrated by putting up more sail (laughs). I passed close to the islands, the rocks no doubt, it was the first land I had seen since the islands of Trinidad. I had forgotten that it existed after so many days. The continental shelf was parallel to the swell and the wind, so I didn't notice any difference in the sea state. On the other hand, I had to deviate a little bit from my route to avoid being fooled by the madman. (do sailors go mad or get fooled by a madman at the Horn?)
Jean Yves Bernot always tells us that we have to change our mode after Cape Horn, I'm going to do that. It's a good thing to be back in the Atlantic. I'm happy to have finished with the Pacific. It's a new phase of the race. I've been working for a few days now on the strategy for the climb back up, there are quite a few things to going on. When you pass Cape Horn, you also take shorter naps. I have had a few less than usual. I have just received the weather files before the call, but I had not planned to go through the passage of the Le Maire straits
Before gybing, I'll go do a quick check of the boat. It looks good, I was careful with the boat's acceleration in the last lot of big wind. I've been really careful, so I am not too worried about the state of the boat.
It's gradually slowing down, the sun is coming up, I still have 25-30 knots, the sea has flattened out. The difference is really that we no longer have the big sea that there has been for the past few days, we had 7 metres of waves, it was starting to get big.
I'm happy to have passed, to have made it. It was the third cape, I passed the first two in the lead, but fate would have it otherwise for the third. There is still a long way to go, still 7000 miles to go, and there are a lot of options at play.
