Voyage Archive

Tristan da Cunha and Inaccessible Island

15 February - 15 March 2020

Distance sailed: ~4000 nautical miles

We departed Rio de Janeiro and sailed for Ilha Grande, where we anchored between the islands and waited for a decent weather window to sail East. During the first two weeks of the voyage we were sailing everywhere except along the rhumb line to Cape Town. There were small windless high pressure systems dotted across the entire Atlantic and we often found ourselves sailing south to get more wind and then north to get away from bad weather. Eventually we made it to Tristan da Cunha and got to spend an entire day on the island. On the third night we anchored off Inaccessible Island and got severely bombarded by Storm Petrels. As always, we got the worst weather of the voyage on the continental shelf, just as we approached Cape Town after thirty days at sea.

2023 Cape 2 Rio

2 January - 28 January 2023

Distance sailed: ~3740 nautical miles

Sterna departed Cape Town on the start line of the 50th anniversary Cape 2 Rio with a full crew of eight and Justin Taylor (ex-clipper skipper and director) at the helm. The first few days of the voyage were rather bumpy and the crew got swamped a few times by large waves breaking off the port quarter. Gerrit even got hit in the face by a flying fish after one particularly stormy watch. The south Atlantic high proved difficult to navigate, and like other competitors in the race, Sterna ended up sailing in light conditions almost all the way to Rio de Janeiro. In the end the multitude of calms and slow speeds meant that Sterna ended up in 10th place on handicap after an adjusted time of 25 days and 14 hours.