Personal Blog of Ellen MacArthur

The backdrop to the fifth day of the Archipelago Raid was a beautiful 03.00 sunrise as the courageous teams left Rödhamn, Åland to once again head across the open stretch of the Baltic Sea back towards the Stockholm archipelago. After two hours of sailing on a flat calm sea, the organisers decided to cancel the leg, tow the boats to the northeast part of the Stockholm Archipelago and start the next leg from Fejan island as soon as the wind picked up. The teams were then able to sail to the island of Sandhamn at a good pace in 6-10 knots of wind.

Ellen MacArthur and Greg Homann on the BT F18 are currently ninth and had a great start of leg 10 today speeding away in 10 knots upwind. Late afternoon yesterday, they had problems with their sail and had to stop to repair it. They dropped to last but managed to climb back to 14^th place for the leg. “We are really enjoying the race. There are a lot of tactics involved, which is interesting. We are not used to sailing this type of boat and we are learning a lot. And we are laughing a lot. We are tired but still laughing, which is giving us energy,” said Ellen MacArthur in good spirits before the start in Fejan today.

Tomorrow, Wednesday 18 June, the exhausted sailors will finish the race late afternoon in the city of Stockholm.