Group photo before the SITraN start The ideal wind at the start of the SITraN charity race did not last long, and the fleet slowed down in the light breeze with an increasing number of calms in it. But the race rules allowed us to use our engines, due to the heavily loaded [...]
As I write this I am sitting behind Puffin’s salon table, not in the boat but in our new (downsized) home. Golden Globe Race rules allowed the entrants to leave the salon table behind, so it stayed in the U.S. I will be sending it to Ian, the new owner of Puffin, but there is [...]
Piroska, my older daughter, was 12 years old when she christened Salammbo, my first solo circumnavigator boat. It's a good omen for me to see her with Puffin... The race of my life has become a race for my life. I feel what Jack London's gold digger heroes felt escaping south from the [...]
The Rules of the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race—the first ever solo circumnavigation race—were quite simple for both the sailors and organizers. But the 50th Anniversary Race next year is a heavily loaded obstacle course for all parties involved. In order to replicate the original race, the race management wants to preserve its main [...]
“You don’t win the race at sea. You lose it at sea. You win the race during the preparation…” Conrad Colman said this recently, after his impressive Vendée Globe finish under jury rig. He had all kinds of troubles during his circumnavigation, including having a fire on board and losing his mast. His well-phrased statement [...]
Hard to believe it, but we already got the first snow of the season a few days ago in New York, and Puffin is still not fully dressed. There has been steady progress, of course, but there are so many moving parts, and it is really difficult to make them visible. I got my first [...]
You might think the heavy lifting would be over once the hull has been reinforced and most of the paint job finished… Well, that is actually a misconception comparable to thinking your house would be complete once there were walls and a roof. Yes, the nature of the workload will now change, with less physical [...]
My biggest sponsor, my wife Eva, supervising Puffin's refit Well, summer passed by and Puffin has gotten her seaworthy boat look back. And the fall is about changing colors, right? Grey was the last color in Part 4, and it was that of the strongest primer I have ever sanded (Alexseal, of course). [...]
Puffin after "tacking" onto her port side in the paint shop On August 23 Puffin changed her tack in the paint shop as if under sail. The travel lift crew and I flipped the boat on her port side like a well-oiled machine. And the car tires had evidently done their job, since [...]
At long last, after three brutal weeks of work, Puffin got “naked” (stripped of her bottom paint, gelcoat, etc.), and headed inside to the paint shop. Puffin "naked" heading into the paint shop I have been working off of a shoestring budget, and every move in any boatyard is costly, so must be [...]
