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X-Yachting 2013
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x-yachting 2013 121 x
world
together the mohr ernst family packed up their imx 40 and set sail on a three year, round the
world
adventure of a lifetime s ailing around the
world
is one of those dreams that we all secretly harbour, but few of us will ever act on. “we’ll wait,” we tell ourselves, “wait until the kids have left home, until we’ve retired, have fewer commitments...” but jens mohr ernst and his wife kirsten were determined not to wait – they wanted their two sons, kresten, now 12, and jørgen, 17, to experience the
world
too, so the four of them set of on a three-year circumnavigation in 2009. “when i met my wife, the
first
thing i told her was we had to sail around the
world
together,” remembers jens, “just to make clear what she was getting into! as a kid i was inspired by following the whitbread round the
world
race and admired boats like flyer. later on ellen macarthur pushed those dreams further. a few times i made some shorter singlehanded trips, but found that it was no fun without having my family onboard. “we always loved both racing and cruising our previous sailboats. the boys are all pretty competitive and started racing optimists in their early years. mamma kirsten was
first
introduced to a yacht in 1995 when we got our
first
family keelboat. she liked sailing in calm conditions but seasickness was her problem and we always carried a lot of sail to stabilise the small boat and shorten the trip as much as possible. in 2001 we upgraded to a 31-footer, making it possible to sail longer passages, because everyone felt much better on the
new
boat. “after some very successful summer vacations to sweden i started to look for a boat that would be able to sail us around the
world
, and at the same time be competitive in around the buoys races. in december 2006 we brought our
new
imx 40, exabyte , home to denmark from hamble. we spent 2007 and 2008 both racing and cruising with great success and in spring 2009 we started to plan our big trip. we planned to spend two years crossing the atlantic, going through the panama canal, across the pacific to
new
zealand, across the indian ocean to the red sea, through the med and back north to denmark. “we left denmark in september 2009 and everything went to plan – crossing the atlantic and through the panama canal. the
first
big highlight was entering the pacific and visiting ‘las perlas’, the pearl islands in the gulf of panama, where we anchored in beautiful bays and had locals come out in canoes to invite us to their village. lovely passages in idyllic weather, stunning bays and friendly welcomes were our life for the six months and 10,000 nm all the way to tonga. we all loved it very much but in the end felt we needed to stop and digest the experiences for a while. “we agreed to go to
new
zealand during the hurricane season and stayed in auckland for seven months. auckland was fantastic: the people, some great regattas and a nice cruising area around the hauraki gulf. in auckland our two boys had the chance to join local schools – for the
first
time in their life they actually wanted to go to school, and we all had a hard time leaving
new
zealand in april 2011 and saying goodbye to
new
friends. exabyte at anchor in vaitahu, french polynesia.
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