‘Not many people have sailed on the racing yacht 40,000 miles’

Polish crew member Kris Slezak completed a circumnavigation on board Jamaica Get All Right. Here's his favourite moments of the eleven-month challenge.

Best Moment:
Flying heavyweight spinnaker in 30 plus knots of wind and surfing Jamaica Get All Right above 20 knots.

Most Challenging Moment:
Sailing from Singapore to China was probably the most challenging - not only physically but mentally - we had to retire from the race twice due to equipment malfunction, we were short handed and still found some nasty upwind sailing in gale force winds, freezing cold and with enormous chinese fishing fleets around, which was folloewd by only two days recovery in Qingdao before our longest passage from China to USA.

Best Wildlife Moment:
Difficult to describe one best moment as wildelife during the whole race was absolutely stunning! If I had to choose one moment it would be after leaving San Francisco when I was on the helm and I saw two gigantic humpbacks playing around, jumping out of the water and showing their tails.

Most Unique moment:
Leaving Sydney Harbour for Rolex Sydney Hobart Race with 100,000s of spectators around, 100 participants and amazing harbour scenery…

strong>Biggest achievement:
Biggest personal achievement was leading all the work and navigation on starboard watch with no injuries, no equipment damage and keeping high crew morale. On the sportive edge - leading the race from NYC to Irleand for 2/3 of the race.

‘Why am I doing this?’ moment:
Leaving Rio de Janeiro in 30 plus knots of wind on the nose with biggest sail plan. We were massively overpowered and I spent 3 hours on the bow fighting with the Mother Nature to do a headsail change while being thrown around by braking waves trying to take me overboard. This is the only moment, which was really scary for me...

‘This is why I’m doing this!’ moment:
Not many people have sailed on the racing yacht 40,000 miles in 11 months visitng 6 continents, 14 countries...

Funniest moment:
Whole trip was fun - we had a great atmopshere during stopovers and on the way racing. One moment: Getting my haircut done by a friend on the choppy sea and loosing clippers overboard leaving half of my head undone was quite funny at that time…

Craziest moment:
Being hit by the weather front bringing >120 kts of wind in the Southern Ocean -> crazy stuff!

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