Month: March 2020

I now spend much time watching the internet to be updated on Corona.

I saw a video from Italy on an intensive care unit. The Doctor told the reporter: As you can see most of the patients hera are obese.

I have always been on the fat side but I am controling it by eating only once a day. I really love to eat, icecream, cakes and other sweet thing. In preparation for my long sail I had the tempting idea to eat not only healthy food. Of course it was not realy rational. It was like an alchoholist always finding a rationale for a drink. Anywhay when test sailing my boat in Hunnebostrand quite a few persons invited me to a resturang. I chose icecream over healthy food.

My weight is now 78 instead of my maximum BMI 72. I realised that I have to get more healthy. To do something about it I now run every day for one and a half houer and after that do exercises for 30 minutes. The idea is to get bigger lungs and get back to a healthy BMI, to get very fit.

What is worse our gouvernment do not think it is important with face masks and social distance. Our neighbors Finland, Denmark and Norway do as do most other contries. The Corona will be very happy about that.

Even worse. We do not have enough equipment to handle the sick. Therefore instead of getting better hospotals The Council for Hospital Ethics have come up with new guidelines and regulations: Older persons should be unplugged to give place for younger. It certainly is an easy way out, but it scares me.

I am 80 and most persons are younger. I ask my readers to help me. If you see a Doctor trying to unplugg me from a lifesaving machine. I plead to you all, talk them out of it. Tell the Doctors that Yrvind is good for an other 80 years. If not, you can be sure, there will be no more posts on this site.

I sincerley hope nothing bad happens to me, I keep myself isolated. If Norway opens up I leave from Ålesund, If not I start from Bohuslän the Swedish west coat. It is not good sailingwise but the only left option. I have AIS also now thanks to Bövik Marine 2 strobelight of good quality.

My distination still depends on Corona, but the general idea is to sail south, west of Madeira, Canary Islands, Cape Verde, crossing the equator, keep sailing south until I reach high latitude. When I run out of food after 5000 – 10000 miles I try to find a small port and restock. There I will reorient myself with respect to Corona and make a new decision.

Regards Yrvind.

On the latest post I write about the idea of starting fråm Ålesund Norway becouse the Corona gave problems trailing Exlex to Ireland, many contries have blocked their borders.

Now also the Norwigian border is closed.

I also got a phone call from Madeira telling me that all their marinas are closed and it seams that many ports worldwide now are closing. It is to early to make decisions. But it seams that I will have problems to be able to round Cape of Good Hope before December. It is important to sail the Indian Ocean in the summer.

What to do?

I am not shore. I do not feel safe to cross the North Sea single handed even with AIS, but maybe if I get desperate I will do it anyway. I did it singlehaded 1973 and 1976 without AIS but it was tiring to keep awake.

I am about to pack food but if the situation do not improve very quickly I might be forced to do the voyage to NZ with more stops, that will take two years. An other solution would be to figure out a very different, long, interesting, non stop route that takes me into stormy weather. I now have all the food and I really like to start this summer, but of course such an voyage would be meaningless if it did not test Exlex in difficult conditions. I have some ideas, but they must come to maturity. This new type of simple sustainable boat ideas needs more testing before I start building Next Design, now 7,8 X 1,3 meter, six beams long.

Corona is a world wide problem. Besides medical problems there will be economical problems affecting many more than me.

I have heard that 20 % of those like me over 80 years will die even if they get good hospital treatment. I am over 80. I do run once a week and do 20 min exercise evry day. Now from tomorrow I will run twice a week hoping that it increase my chance of survival to 12 %. They say that 70 – 80 % of the population will get infected.

Untill the situation becomes clearer I will work on the next design a boat in wich two persons can spend a long time at sea.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind

The plan was to trail Exlex to Ireland in May and from Dingle sail her to Madeira. Due to Corona I now plan to sail out from Ålesund Norway in the beginning of June. The distance to Madeira is more than twice as long and in tougher and colder conditions. I see this as the best alternative even though this later will press me time as it is important that I round the Cape of Good Hope not later than 1st of December when the summer down there begins. Below is the planned track Ålesund – Madeira drawn with a lead pencel by me on the British Routing chart for June. First I will sail west to not have much of the Gulf Stream against me. I will also try to keep well west of Scotland, Ireland and the Bay of Biscay before going east to catch the northely winds outside Portugal.

Click once or twice to enlarge.

Below frequency of gales for the same month.

The time at sea will be much more demanding, on the other hand time on the road behind the car will be a piece of cake compared to the trail to Ireland, no ferries and a distance of only 1000 kilometers and a stunning Norwegian fjord landscape. Deep water is just outside Ålesund, I like that.

Unfortunately the Boat Show in Stockholm has been stopped. It was meant that I should have given 3 talks in Stockholm about the ideas and development of Exlex. I hope to write something about here here instead.

To be continued…

Regards Yrvind.