This was a realy crazy Trip. We started well prepared Saturday afternoon, but all preparations habe been finished just in time…

The beginning was fantastic, flat water and plenty of wind lifted us on the foils an we sailied between 18kts to 28kts. Behind Fehmarn island we had an average of more than 20kts, whooohooo, so its less stressful during the night.

4am, first sunlight

But unfortunately the wind on the east side of Gedser was not enough for a stable flight, so we had to stay very concentrated to look for every bit of wind an trim the boat always to max speed for not loosing our good average. Some time it looked really bad, no full-foiling any more. But the night was really nice, at sundown the full moon was already up and we had enough light to see the waves and to push all the night. The wind was to low, but at the end of the night we still had an average of 15,2kts, and we had still some power. This was essential, cause in the time between 4am and 10am it was the most tired and difficult. We needed lot of powergels, coke, isostar etc. to stay concentrated. This time we changed helm everey 25mins.

real offshore-foiling between Sweden and Poland

All morning it was perfect conditions, and we managed to sail a lot of time on our foils between Sweden an Poland, even in 1,5m waves (but in an good angle). Next to the polish coast we have been back to 15,4 average and planed landing in Wladislowowo with 371nm …

But sometimes things go the other way: after sailing 344nm (Record of Yvan Bourgnon) with still 1:30 left to sail we decided to calm down to sail back safely now…so we sailed at 12-14kts instead of 20+kts…but with a gust we were sometimes back at full speed an we nosedived badly. Rudders broken, and a foil loosing out of the hull. The foil canted inside the daggerbord-box and made a big hole there…so water started to enter the boat an we couldn’t stop it, cause we could not reach the damaged part of the hull. So max rake on that foil and max possible speed, to keep up the hull. Heading the fastest way to the beach, the we called Filip Walczak who taked the the SAR team in polish and with our tracking the found us easily in 20mins.

town to Leba by polish SAR, left hull nearly sunk

We already had prepared an towing line and so the have town us with around 6kts to the next port, Leba. The foil always generated some lift to prevent the total sinking…so the bioat sunk in the moment we arrived the slipway…just in time.

Happy to be back on land and this with our boat we had to get the water out of the hull to bring the boat our of the water…but with a lot of very friendly and helpful polish people it went on fast.

It was really exhausting sailing the 24h hrs, and then the crash and rescue at the end was really hard. Towing a near-submarine, with all the waves coming over, a salty shower all few seconds killed our rest of energy. In the end we had been very happy to arrive with no big injuries, but we had no more energy to celebrate the new set record.

Next morning after analyzing the GPS data we known the final distance of 361 nm, yeah.

Now all paperwork with the SAR team and harbourmaster, disassemble the boat, try to organizing a repair of the boat and then on a road trip from Poland to Netherlands to get the boat back on the water as fast as possible.

A BIG THANK YOU  to all supporters ! without yout help this would not have happend ! Cool you have been ‚onboard‘ !