January 27, 2025, 02:45 UTC | The Skipper
Eleven days have passed since the crew boarded NORDIC FALKEN in Las Palmas, and we’ve covered 1,778 nautical miles together under the leadership of our fearless skipper, Emily Caruso. The word “skipper” can evoke various thoughts and expectations from people who have different levels of sailing experience, particularly offshore sailing experience. Some people who have experience solely with day charters may consider a skipper’s responsibilities to be limited to showing up on time, getting off the dock, setting the sails, anchoring, playing the music, and getting the party crew back safely at the end of the day. The crew on FALKEN has witnessed how Emily’s responsibilities go way deeper and wider. She has done an amazing job managing all aspects of our transatlantic adventure to ensure our safety and positive experience.
Emily has been reassuring to everyone with her style of communication, counseling, mitigation, coaching, instruction, navigation planning, weather forecasting, training, and safety protocols. But being the leader of eleven people on board a 65’ sailboat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean means she also has to leave the cockpit and navigation station and make sure the rest of the ship is tidy and working efficiently. She has been particularly focused on several routine mechanical items that have come up on the trip (as they always do on boats), ensuring the heads have been kept tidy, stepping in as a Michelin chef delivering warmed meals at 6:00 pm on the dot every night (a highlight for many of us), and generally keeping us entertained with fantastic stories from her sailing adventures.
If you are family or friends checking the blog to see how your loved ones are doing on this adventure, just be assured that they are in great hands with Emily and everyone is feeling safe, secure, and appreciative of this fantastic opportunity!
Kevin Bresser, Austin TX
crew@59-north.com
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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.
Golden Day
The Pacific is giving us “the shimmer” - with a still flat sea seven hours out of San Francisco Bay, we’re motoring south along the shipping channel, with an hour to go to what teases now as a stunning sunset against wispy clouds. Throughout this first day of Falken 11 the sails have unfurled and been furled again as skipper Alex tries to fill them a meager breeze indeed. We’ve seen a few whales traveling along the route, and an otter that was sadly just a buoy. It’s the first open ocean sail for many of us and it’s a thrill to anticipate all the new experiences we’ll have.
Seasickness
But maybe, I thought, with some drugs I could stay ahead of it. The first 48 hours I felt horrible. But luckily with 3 health care professionals on board and in a very encouraging environment, my body found its way. Anyway, someone offered me a patch (unavailable in Canada) and someone else gave me some pills for nausea and now I feel much, much better.