start -4 hrs
19 February 2024
It’s the morning of the RORC Caribbean 600 Race here! All quiet on the docks, except for the divers polishing our hull. It’s going to be a slower race, with the wind forecasted to drop off by Wednesday morning as it gets sucked into a low developing up north. So we will be thankful for the clean bottom!
We started 59º North Offshore Racing as a branch out from 59º North’s flagship product of offshore passages—because we all felt it was a no-brainer to combine my (Nikki’s) experience and passion for racing with the 59º North family and brand, so we can share this amazing side of sailing. Offshore racing can—like sailing itself—be elitist. 59º North Offshore Racing is all about opening doors. We’re opening the racing door to the wider sailing community by offering a significant amount of training before the race in order to train the crew up so that they are safe and competent against the rest of the fleet, who are mostly fully pro teams.
I put amateur in inverted commas because that’s at the beginning! It’s amazing to see how this crew, and all the crews, will develop and learn and grow into a solid team. Cannot wait for the race. Please track us and send us messages. It really feels amazing to know we are not only bringing these nine crew along, but also all of you!
- Nikki
NikkiHenderson
View more passage logs
A last hurrah
Under the dome of stars in a moon-less sky, each of us during our time at the helm used the most rudimentary celestial navigation, keeping a star or two lined up with the mast as a helper to following the heading range. It was a whole crew event to set the spinnaker, reef the mainsail and practice the heave-to in case of man overboard. Alex stressed that the key to success in all of these crucial activities is preparation. It was hugely satisfying to accomplish these tasks through teamwork. We share a constant good hearted back and forth full of stories, one-liners and comebacks that also means constant laughter.
One little bird!
Falken has almost rounded the Channel Islands and is cruising along splendidly about 100 miles offshore. Though several models predicted some slightly fresher winds today, we were met with a consistent 18-20 kts of pure bliss. It seems that from the moment we left the dock in San Francisco, there has been much laughter and conversation amongst everyone. The plan is to gybe in a few hours and begin our approach to Ensenada. As much as I do appreciate the jokes and intellectual musings, I equally appreciate the natural, silent moments we share at night, all of us on watch gazing up above to the shooting stars, constellations, and planets putting on their quiet show.
Birds and glows
The sun brought new wind and we were soon putting up the Yankee (jib) and turning off the motor. During the evening tradition of sharing “glums and glows” that follows the crew dinner, our Mate Ryan proclaimed it a “champagne sailing” kind of day. As Alex noted this evening, life goes by so fast that one of the very best things about his line of work is enjoying the passage of time in the slow lane of an ocean passage. But by tomorrow, the green blobs in the weather sailing app indicate we’re going to pick up some significant northwesterly winds and we’ll take them ever further south to the Channel Islands latitude. We’re all super excited for the knots to climb and to see Falken really run.