The Maxus 22 "Atlantic Puffin" of extreme sailor Szymon Kuczynski is in the Tracker of the journey off Cape Horn - Kuczynski will soon have passed the third major waypoint of his solo non-stop circumnavigation. The Polish sailor had already passed the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin faster than expected, and now the Atlantic lies ahead of him again after 24 weeks at sea.
Kuczynski's boat is a 6.36 metre Maxus 22 from the Polish Northman shipyard, with which he sailed around the world from 2014 to 2016. At that time, however, with stopovers and a crossing of the Panama Canal (interview in YACHT 11/2016). He had the boat modified for his travels, including reinforcements to the hull and rigging.
The 37-year-old set off on his new journey from Plymouth in August 2017; this time he wants to sail non-stop all the way round, from west to east, with the wind. He has budgeted around nine to eleven months for this. He now has a good 18,000 nautical miles in his wake and has already completed well over half of the total distance of around 26,000 nautical miles.
Szymon Kuczynski would be the first sailor to circumnavigate the world single-handed and non-stop on such a small boat. In an interview with YACHT, Kuczynski said that the motivation for his extreme voyages was that he was simply looking for a break from everyday life on land and was basically very happy with his small cruiser, which is trimmed for the high seas. Only the very high waves in the region around the Cape of Good Hope had caused him and his ship a lot of trouble on his first circumnavigation.
In brief messages from on board, Kuczynski recently reported problems with the autopilot, fears for his mast in storms off Cape Horn and the anticipation of warmer latitudes, which he should soon reach again.
