Key West Race Week 2007.
Better Than… put on some mileage this year, close to 13000 NM, which would be over half the distance of most around the globe races. Well, some of it by ship and truck, but still…
We did some IRC racing against smaller boats in Key West and against the big boys in Miami, some vicious […]
February was a Miami boot camp, with Gosia and EK exploring the vast waters of Biscayne Bay. We not only got a taste of Olimpism while sharing meals with Kevin Burnham, Magnus Liljedahl, Pawel Kacperski and other stars, but also while crossing tacks on the practice course with their pupils in Olympic dinghies, mixing it […]
England, bloody England.
There are things to learn everyday. Dave Jurkowski flew in as originally scheduled and when I arrived with Kuba, he was already well settled in with tons of local knowledge that made our adaptation easier.
He told me that June is monsoon season in Southern England. My oilskins, wellingtons and umbrella were in the container somewhere […]
First lesson in Solent sailing: you don’t dock double-handed. We were assigned a spot in the marina, but it was taken, so we tried a small spot to starboard going backwards behind Tp52 Bear of Britain. I chickened out and slowed down too early, the puff over 25kt hit, the 4kt current finished the job with […]
Gosia, Paulina, St. John and the Michalek clan showed up to work around noon with the additional truck load of top gear for the journey. It took two days to sort things out, dividing piles of stuff into basic categories:
1. Necessary for cruising (on the boat).
2. Necessary for racing in Stockholm (in the van).
3. Wet […]
In the morning everybody wrote his or her postcards and after attaching our new very expensive equipment we were on the road again.
The seas were calm and spirits high we were flying in 15 to 20kt rich, couple hours later we spotted very unusual and beautiful cloud behind it was a huge white Nike logo […]
Out of Germanic jurisdiction, working our way out to the sea through massive throng of boats, we celebrated with some YEGERMEISTER and Sprite that Dave purchased in Olympic Marina.Baltic opened up for us with fair weather, although there was plenty of rain every single day, we skipped Copenhagen and Bornholm went straight for Visby on […]
After six hours of motoring we reached the starting area, weather forecast materialized in stiff 15 to 20kt from north/northwest filling our hearts and those on square riggers with joy and hope of easy victory down wind. Steve Devoe held safety briefing in which he promised to personally kill anybody who falls overboard, Gosia put […]
The next four days was Szczecin, but in fact it was about 3 times its population, with crowds pouring in hundreds of thousands not only to see the boats but to welcome us, what a spirit!
On our sail from Swinoujscie first came young crew of Nauticus who helped us get diesel at night; unprovoked act […]
I must mention the story of my grand aunt Oska, she is the senior in the family I have missed the family festivities in July celebrating her 90th birthday so I am taking freedom to use this forum to honor her, by presenting her humble involvement in Tall Ships 2007.
Oska is a devoted historian surrounded […]
Another Monday; August 6 2007 the crew dispersed to Berlin’s airports, the boat had to be delivered to Breskens in Holland for the further journey by truck, having about six days to spear I invited Ewa and Chris Zaleski to join me for few days with Marek and Maja. I hand picked ten most qualified […]
Porto Rotundo’s round harbor turned into spectacular auto show for next few days, Audi being only exhibitor did not spare funds to create memorable experience, as elegant and sexy as their product.
With an exception for dry sandwiches, but perhaps that is a local custom since we did not eat fresh bread in Sardinia once. The […]
Gosia and Stefan arrived and we were ready to go, weather was great again, after two nasty Mistrals, wind turned Gregale opposite to Zephyrus predicted by local meteorologists; we soon got used to those discrepancies.
Stefan being new guy and local got few more jobs assigned than others.
For another week he shell be responsible for collecting […]
My friend PJ joined Andrzej and I for delivery back to France. It was rainy and gray through atrocious waters of Strait of Bonifacio, but the sun came out on the second morning and than came the wind straight from the Rhone Valley right when we entered the Gulf of Lion.
That was my 4th Mistral […]
Daniel organized our next regatta in Canary Islands, he invited us, paid almost all expenses and flew to Palma to help us assemble our cradles, drive us around and make sure we are happy, sort of superior Peter Craig.
I spent 15 days in Lanzarote waiting for delayed ship on both ends of the regatta and […]
Despite the busy schedule on Better Than, and absence of crucially important crewmembers, J24 Twins had delivered unprecedented number of victories in 2007. Team won US NATIONAL CHAMPIONS, DISTRICT CHAMPIONS and EAST COAST CHAMPIONS titles and the line honors in Newport and Mid Sound regattas.
Bravo!