Sail
Austrian starts solo non-stop circumnavigation
Sailor Norbert Sedlacek Koch on board his yacht IY Open60AAL. photo
© Shipyard Innovation Yachts/dpa
It’s his fourth attempt and this time it should work. Sailor Norbert Sedlacek wants to cover around 34,000 nautical miles in around 200 days without a break.
The Austrian sailor Norbert Sedlacek has launched a fourth attempt for a sustainable non-stop circumnavigation. The 60-year-old former tram driver left Les Sables-d’Olonne around 100 kilometers northwest of La Rochelle on France’s Atlantic coast, as shown in a video on his Facebook page.
Sedlacek started in a boat made entirely of recyclable materials. It is only driven by the wind, the electricity for the navigation device, for example, is generated by renewable energies such as wind, hydroelectric power and solar energy. Sedlacek wants to cover around 34,000 nautical miles non-stop and alone, without an escort boat, across all oceans, including the Arctic and Southern Ocean, in around 200 days. It would be the first time that a sailor has mastered such a route non-stop and alone.
The previous attempt failed in Iceland in 2021 due to power supply problems. In 2019 he had to turn back because a sail ripped southwest of Ireland in a storm. In 2018, too, technical reasons forced him to give up after three days.