Speaking from on board the famous STARK Imoca this morning Finnish skipper Ari Huusela now has the 250 nautical miles wide ridge of high pressure to negotiate before the Azores, and today he will pass under the 2000 nautical miles to the finish. He is starting to find the continually changing ETA a bit frustrating but he says...... “Life is good, as always I am super happy, I am approaching the high pressure zone of light winds and it is quite wide and complicated and so I will struggle through it. I have 11 kts of wind and I am doing 11kts and so it is quite OK right now. Hopefully I will keep a small bit of wind, but I have been following Alexia, she is going quite well and has been going seven knots or something so it is fine right now.
I have to go a bit more west to find a way through this. It looks complicated and messy and quite difficult to get through this last stretch to the finish. The routing when I get a new forecast is always changing, it is quite different, from 12 to 15 days some of the routes are quite north, going close to England and some more south, straight towards to the finish line. We will see. After this windless zone it will be clearer, but for sure it will be nice to get back on dry land, some time. I have been out here 103 days and I am starting to miss fresh food and some fresh clothes.
Frustrating because routes change every day?
Yes, mentally it has been quite hard recently, I have been struggling mentally with these things these last three days, sometimes it is very depressing after two days of sailing that your ETA is still two or three days more sailing than expected. It feels like getting to the finish line is a never ending story. It would be nice to be back on dry land, especially now when all the others are there. But I am not in a hurry, I just try to concentrate on these moments and enjoy these days. The weather has been quite nice since yesterday, the waves have not been too bad. Now it is quite good, light conditions and I will try to enjoy it, with a nice sea state.”
