Time flies.. and how I miss being at sea!

It’s only 5 months to go until we sail Wilson to Lorient in France to get ready for the start of the Globe 40 end of August.. the pressure is clearly on!

Wilson floating…in the air though.

I am in a phase right now where I wake up stressed every day, with my head full with all the things that still need doing and I go through our financial situation, calculating if we can make it and stick to the plan or if we have to take things off the list and prioritise others. All that before even opening my eyes. My morning-me is quite a stressed and doubting one lately I can tell you. Can we do this? Will we make it in time? Will we make it financially? What if something unpredicted happens? What if..? Well, what if.. nobody knows the answer without trying, right?

Well, Quba can clearly switch off his mind when sleeping!

Luckily, I quickly get back my positivity while working on Wilson. With ticking things off the list. Although the list still seems to get longer every day while finishing things that I forgot to put on the list. It’s a crazy sailing life at the moment, full of office work and refit work. No sailing at all. I miss being at sea, where I can be the best version of myself, focussing on the boat, the environment and how to get to where we want to go. Oh I can’t wait to sail again and to get to know Wilson properly. In her element.

The sea, so close but still so far!

I don’t mean to sound negative here, it’s just my thoughts and feelings about everything that comes with a project like this that I try to put down to paper. It’s very little sailing when you prepare for an around-the-world-project und you truly go through many emotional phases - the positive ones aswell as the negative ones. It’s not all easy going all the time. I clearly know that this all is part of such a big project and also I clearly know that, later, looking back, I will love this part of the project too. I know we will be so proud to make it to the start line of the big race, considering how little time we had for so much work and such little budget. It’s a big risk to take, honestly, when you don’t have the safety net of big sponsors already before the project starts. But I think it’s also a big part of why this is so tempting and exciting! I mean - we’re doing it! No matter what, we will make it and all this stress will have been so worth it! And I hope that like this we can motivate other people and fascinate future partners for our sport.

When you have a dream and you want to go for it, you’ll have to take risks. It might not seem doable sometimes, but those doubts belong to the risks you take. You can do anything when you really want it. The hardest part is to accept those doubtful phases, see them as part of the game and get through it. I do this with reminding myself what we’re doing this for, the big goal, the awesome sailing that comes with it, Wilson surfing down the waves, into the sunset. It can be amazing afterwards, don’t forget that!

Wilsons little “wings” are on to protect us a bit from the water.

We are making good progress in the refit every day and we are getting closer to go back into the water. This will be about 1 month later than planned, but that’s nothing unusual I would say. The next exciting steps will be finishing the electrics, putting the new standing rigging on and fit the new sails. Amazing times ahead!

For end of April/May we’re planning to do a sail to the Acores, then to France and back to the UK - which will be a good test for all the work we did and we’ll gain a lot of confidence in the boat and our skills. And then, very soon, we’ll be off to sail around the world!

If you are interested in joining us in this amazing project, just have a look on our “support us” page, we offer some really cool opportunities to jump onboard our Class 40! ❤️