Ebru Yaral from Hamburg has signed on board the South African-flagged Swan 53 "Sterna" for the trip of a lifetime. However, her "Allspice Yachting" team is still based in Cape Town and will be delayed on the next leg of the trip to Auckland, as damage to the mast was discovered shortly before the relaunch and needs to be repaired first.
Despite numerous last-minute preparations, the 43-year-old sailor took the time to answer our questions about the first leg, which covered around 7,300 nautical miles from Southampton to Cape Town.
YACHT: Ebru, seven weeks at sea with a motley international crew - what was it like?'s?
Ebru Yaral: Very relaxed, and warmer than I thought. I prepared very well for the cold and wet stages - mentally and with my equipment. I ran out of "light" shirts at the equator because I hadn't expected it to be so hot ... After two to three weeks, there was a moment when I had a slight case of cabin fever. It was getting too long for me at that point. But that didn't last long.
How was the atmosphere on board, did you harmonise as well as you had hoped?
It was actually very harmonious. Of course, everyone had a day when he or she wasn't in such a good mood, and one or two people were certainly frustrated at times. But Justin(Crew member from the USA, editor) has actually summarised it quite well: There's no point in wasting your energy arguing or shouting. We didn't have any open, loud confrontations and I can say that we got on extremely well compared to other boats.
What do you do on board? What role, what watch do you have?
We all do everything. Our watch system is four hours active and four hours passive. During the four active hours, each of the four people on watch has to steer for an hour, carry out any manoeuvres if one is due, and otherwise do the other tasks such as cooking, cleaning or washing up. On the first leg, it turned out that I'm quite good at the funk. Especially as I speak French very well, I was able to communicate with the French boats and was part of the daily calls. This was very helpful as the French had contacts with SSB radio operators on land who were able to give us regular weather information.
What does a typical day in the Ocean Globe Race look like?
It's actually very boring! On watch, it involves steering, cleaning, cooking, washing up, eating or simply reading a book, solving Sudoku or playing chess. During the passive four hours, we mostly slept and otherwise rested in other ways. Changing watch was always nice, as you got to see the other crew members for a short time. And at 6 p.m. board time, we had a cooked dinner together, which was always a highlight of the day.
And the other highlights?
One of the best moments was when a fin whale probably surfaced twice right next to and behind the boat. That was really wonderful. Basically, it's great to see all the animals. Another really nice moment was crossing the equator. Five of us, including myself, had never done this before and the ceremony was positive and fun: our skipper baptised us with equator water and gave a speech. We also caught a fish and Justin, who is a trained chef, cooked us a fantastic three-course meal.
What was the toughest experience of the first stage?
The hardest moment was the second storm, just before we arrived in Cape Town. It was frustrating, as we were supposed to be in Cape Town and the storm caught up with us. We hadn't been able to use our main for a few days beforehand due to a broken bolt on the lug fitting, for safety reasons. The storm brought us high waves and gusts of up to 42 knots. It was a very exhausting night, and to top it off, a particularly high wave broke directly over me, so that I was completely wet and my lifejacket came off.
Especially after such experiences: Do you already realise how you are growing as a sailor after the first 7,300 nautical miles of this race?
Definitely. I've never steered this much before and I'm now quite good at it. All the manoeuvres on this boat, which is very big for me, were also rather unusually strenuous and complicated at first. It's interesting how intuitively I start to notice things - sounds that weren't there, I notice and start to feel even below deck when the boat is suddenly off course.
The "Sterna" was the twelfth of 14 ships to finally reach Cape Town. Are you happy with your result? Is the goal still "arriving" or have you caught regatta fever in the meantime?
Our goal is still to finish and sail the entire race. Of course, we were always very happy and more motivated when we were faster and left boats behind us or sailed closer to the leaders. But we will always put the safety of the crew and the boat before any ranking.
You didn't start on Sunday either because of a repair. What exactly happened?
On the way to Cape Town we had a problem with the mast fitting. Two bolts on the starboard side were broken. That's why we hadn't really used the mainsail in the last week. When the riggers(in Cape Town, ed.) then removed the boom fitting to replace the bolts, they discovered a crack in the mast on Friday afternoon. Safety is our top priority and we don't want to lose the mast or anything like that, so we worked out a temporary solution with the riggers. Unfortunately, they were unable to weld the sleeve over the weekend and only started on Monday. We are all incredibly frustrated, on pins and needles and can't wait to get sailing again!
