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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Quadruple digits!
We are still headed north away from Hawaii, though today we have started to veer ever so slightly east. Speaking of miles, we hit quadruple digits today and are currently 1051 nms into our journey to Alaska. The sea state continues to calm down, and the famous North Pacific high is just out of our reach. The next few days will be a delicate dance of riding the outskirts of the high while avoiding the pesky low pressure systems that are dancing nearby. In his very wise words, we need to get north but not too far north, stay south but not too far south, continue heading east but not too far east, and avoid going west but also stay west.
The basics
Nordic Falken and her crew have been in a steady course of NNW since the departure of Hawaii. But! The good thing of all of this is that the promised land on which the high pressure lies has been getting closer and closer, meaning in a couple of days we're gonna see the wind slowly veer all the way to the South, which finally should see us easing the sails and remembering the basics of human nature all over again. The crew have been amazing and we've had everyone come around to push through fatigue, seasickness and soaking wet clothes. On another note we left the tropics a while ago and we can really feel the shift of temperature, long gone are the shorts and foulies have been the norm. Not much more apart from this, my intolerance to upwind sailing still pretty much alive but doing it with a bunch of such amazing human beings makes it worth it worthwhile.
Pacific pace
After some initial adversity, we untied our lines and left the beautiful island of O'ahu behind as we set sail north on an adventure of a lifetime. And that is exactly what we are - a family of strangers brought together by a passion for sailing and a love for the sea. The passage, while at its infancy, has delivered. The wind and seas, stars and sails all set the stage for a fantastic journey. We will see you on the other side with many stories to tell.