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!
59ºNorthApprentice
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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.