January 20, 2025, 20:26 UTC | 20º 41.5’ N / 020º 17.6’ W | The Apprentice
Good evening! We are still heading south to get down to 20º N as I write this. We have light winds of 8-13 knots and the engine is on to help us get away from the high pressure over us. We are doing a consistent 7 knots and since we started this passage in Las Palmas, we have done 553 nautical miles.
Jillian is at the helm, Kevin, Janette, and Paulo are sitting in the cockpit watching the mesmerizing sky of stars, and the other watch team (Scott, Sarah, Derek, and Brandon) are hopefully able to get some sleep before waking up at 21:45 local boat time to get ready for the watch switch!
The person writing this blog for you is Vilgot, the apprentice on FALKEN, and I thought it would be interesting for you to get to know me—a 19-year-old guy from Sweden on his first gap year after high school, ending up crossing the Atlantic with 59º North on NORDIC FALKEN.
I met Mia and Andy at a local boat show in Sweden approximately one year after I saw FALKEN in Isafjordur, one of the most northern villages in Iceland. Seeing FALKEN in Isafjordur was during one of my two passages with the training tall ship T/S GUNILLA, a high school training vessel that takes students around the world while they are studying regular subjects like science or social studies. It was during these two trips that I got totally obsessed with ocean passages.
I was introduced to the apprentice program at the boat show that 59º North started a couple of years before and knew that this was something I had to apply for. After sailing on FALKEN from Ellös to Marstrand, I submitted my application and ended up on this Atlantic passage from Las Palmas to Antigua. I could not be more excited and grateful to learn from the professional staff working for 59º North and meet all of the amazing crew for this passage—it is truly a dream come true!
Enough about me! The day has been amazing, loads of sun, and with a warm day, the first shower for the entire crew couldn’t have fit any better. Right after the showers, the crew gathered in the cockpit for dinner and, as usual, had our “Glums and Glow” list for the day. There were almost zero “Glumps.” At the end of dinner, we had our first switch of the local boat time to adapt to the sunrise and sunset as well as the local time in Antigua, so we are now one hour behind UTC.
Everyone seems to be settling in well after these few days, and I heard that crew had started to read some books off watch. Seems like a few habits from home are settling in on the boat!
That’s it for today! Hold Fast!
From Vilgot the Apprentice and the entire crew!
P.S. We read the comments from the blog at dinner and the crew loved them, so keep the comments coming and we’ll read them again at dinner time!
Good evening! We are still heading south to get down to 20º N as I write this. We have light winds of 8-13 knots and the engine is on to help us get away from the high pressure over us. We are doing a consistent 7 knots and since we started this passage in Las Palmas, we have done 553 nautical miles.
Jillian is at the helm, Kevin, Janette, and Paulo are sitting in the cockpit watching the mesmerizing sky of stars, and the other watch team (Scott, Sarah, Derek, and Brandon) are hopefully able to get some sleep before waking up at 21:45 local boat time to get ready for the watch switch!
The person writing this blog for you is Vilgot, the apprentice on FALKEN, and I thought it would be interesting for you to get to know me—a 19-year-old guy from Sweden on his first gap year after high school, ending up crossing the Atlantic with 59º North on NORDIC FALKEN.
I met Mia and Andy at a local boat show in Sweden approximately one year after I saw FALKEN in Isafjordur, one of the most northern villages in Iceland. Seeing FALKEN in Isafjordur was during one of my two passages with the training tall ship T/S GUNILLA, a high school training vessel that takes students around the world while they are studying regular subjects like science or social studies. It was during these two trips that I got totally obsessed with ocean passages.
I was introduced to the apprentice program at the boat show that 59º North started a couple of years before and knew that this was something I had to apply for. After sailing on FALKEN from Ellös to Marstrand, I submitted my application and ended up on this Atlantic passage from Las Palmas to Antigua. I could not be more excited and grateful to learn from the professional staff working for 59º North and meet all of the amazing crew for this passage—it is truly a dream come true!
Enough about me! The day has been amazing, loads of sun, and with a warm day, the first shower for the entire crew couldn’t have fit any better. Right after the showers, the crew gathered in the cockpit for dinner and, as usual, had our “Glums and Glow” list for the day. There were almost zero “Glumps.” At the end of dinner, we had our first switch of the local boat time to adapt to the sunrise and sunset as well as the local time in Antigua, so we are now one hour behind UTC.
Everyone seems to be settling in well after these few days, and I heard that crew had started to read some books off watch. Seems like a few habits from home are settling in on the boat!
That’s it for today! Hold Fast!
From Vilgot the Apprentice and the entire crew!
P.S. We read the comments from the blog at dinner and the crew loved them, so keep the comments coming and we’ll read them again at dinner time!
59ºNorthApprentice
View more passage logs
Hat overboard!
On June 4, we reviewed our passage plan before our departure from the marina in Hjellested.
Departure from Bergen!
The crew on the women’s sail training on Isbjorn is settling into a great routine for managing the boat and life onboard.
The sun sets on another journey
The hardest part of sailing across French Polynesia wasn't the night watches, the heat, or the open ocean — it was the prospect of being trapped on a small boat with a group of strangers. First-timer Natalie boards as a self-described land crab and discovers that the sea has a way of reshaping both your sea legs and your assumptions. What follows is dolphins, sharks, the Milky Way in full technicolour, and a crew that somehow made the whole thing better than she ever imagined.