After two enjoyable nights in Panama City it was time to cross Panama and hence sailing back to the familiar Atlantic Ocean waters, in which our journey started. Especially for the round-the-worlders this had a very significant meaning as our arrival in London was suddenly much closer than ever before. In an attempt to level up with the large freight vessels, the Clipper fleet was divided in groups of three yachts to enter the canal. We were allocated with our friends from VisitSeattle and DaNang Vietnam. In the early morning hours we made our way to the first set of locks, where pilots joined the boats to guide us through the canal. It was impressive to see these huge cargo vessels slowly making their way through the narrow canal and astonishing how the locks effortlessly lifted the vessels to the next water level. Our journey through the canal started with passing below the Bridge of the Americas (picture above) – one of the two only points to transfer between South and North America. Shortly afterwards, the Miraflores lock began its duty by lifting us up by 26.5m onto the level of the Charges River and Gatun Lake. Crossing the canal in sets of three Clipper yachts, allowed us to join a small cargo vessel in each camber. After another 20nm motoring the decent takes place through the three-stage Gatun locks, taking boats once again to sea level. Since its opening in 1914, the Panama Canal counts to one of the Seven Wonders of the Industrial World and has proved a vital component to expand global trade routes in the 20th century. Nowadays, more than 14,000 ships use the canal every year and there is no sign of a decrease in the number of ships, as expansion projects were already initiated. As you can imagine, it has been a breath-taking experience for all of us to cross this short stretch of water and thus easily jumping from one big ocean into the other.

For the first day the wind was enough to keep the boat moving, but shortly afterwards kept dying off. Once again it was crucial have patience and keep the boat moving. In these days we constantly changed between the different sails “Yankee 1”, the “Code 1” and the “Windseeker”, adjusting to the different wind levels in order to reach optimum boat speed. After passing the Windward Passage the wind slightly increased and pulled the whole fleet completely apart. The boats that managed to get to the front at this stage were impossible to catch until our arrival in New York. Nevertheless, we still had five competitors in sight and with more than 1,000nm to go it was still possible to improve our position. The next challenge was to find the best way through the Bahamas, as the islands created several wind shadows. In the end, we left the Great Inagua Island, the Acklins Island and the Crooked Island to our starboard and the Rum Cay to our port. As we passed San Salvador during the night we eventually could see the lights of the island and could even “smell” land – strange things that happen if you live at sea for 11 months ;) It is hard to describe what the actual smell was like, but the crew on our boat agreed that it must have been some mix of grass, dust, sand and traffic.

After leaving the Bahamas the wind increased and New York was directly north of us. The wind slightly increased and with the announcement of the tropical storm Colin we recalled our memories from the North Pacific. Luckily, the storm did not turn out to be as strong as predicted, but 45 knots of wind were still an experience. I managed to increase my personal best at the helm to 22.8 knots, as we surfed down a huge wave.

The last days of the race were again psychologically challenging as we were hit by very shifting wind, which in the end saw us loosing a place to one of our competitors. They only overtook us 3nm before the finish line. As you can imagine this was very hard for us to cope with, after we had been on the boat for several weeks. Sometimes it does feel, as if the hard work does not really reward you. Thus, the long stopover in New York had an even more significant meaning for us, as we needed to recharge our batteries and take some time off the boat.