From Guo Chuan Sailing:
Before we complete the Arctic Ocean Northeast passage non-stop sailing world record challenge, we might have already set a new world record today.
Our trimaran Qingdao China is at 78°33’25 North, 14h00 UTC today, it is 1271 km from the North pole (686 miles).
According to our weather expert Christian Dumard’s knowledge, it is the first time ever a racing boat sails so far North. A big surprise for us. Before Christian sent us the information, we thought it was just the most northern part of our journey.
We have finished half of our voyage already. Today we celebrated with Chinese moon cakes and Russian Vodka.
Again we have nearly no wind and very strong fog the whole day. We could see some ice on the radar beside our way, but with all the fog it was not in visible range.
Later on we noticed ice directly ahead on the radar. We came near very slowly until we could see it. A beautiful ‘icecube’ directly ahead. The boat is not easy to manoeuvre with so little wind and suddenly we drifted directly towards the ice — slowly but steady. We made a turn and managed to drive around the ice.
In the evening we got some more wind so that we could make at least 10kn.
One funny story: Sergey mixed up two water containers and made the meal with saltwater. Guo asked “Oh, that tastes different. Is it a special flavor?” He needed a lot of chocolate to get his taste balanced afterwards.
Keep up to date with Guo Chuan’s record attempt: News – Tracker – Media
