The Vande Globe starts Sunday, November 6th.

That is, of course, the classic solo non-stop race around the world.

2016 will mark the first time that in some of the open 60s, they will be sailing with foils to improve performance.

Excited to see how that goes.

I'll be rooting for Team Saffron in this edition.

Today's guest in the podcast, Ryan Brymeyer, is a rigger for the team and has been working furiously

to get the boat prepped for departure.

I would come up to Brittany and do rigging work and then go back and do some other racing

down in the Mediterranean. I did that for a couple of years with these open 60s, and I realized that this sailing was, you know, just as cool, if not cooler than doing the Volvo race,

which is, you know, like five or seven stopovers and 11 people on the boat and all the rest of it.

Coincidentally, we depart the same day, weather dependent of course, on East Bjorn for the passage

south to Tortola with the Caribbean 1500 cruising rally. In fact, as I record this, it's

4.30 in the morning and I'm sitting in the cockpit on Eastpurn. It's my watch. We are headed

down the bay, just Mia and I.

It's the last time when we departed Annapolis earlier today, it's the last time we're going to be

on the Chesapeake, on the boat anyway, for at least the next three years. We've had a remarkable

sail down the bay so far. We're past the Potomac

River now and should get into Portsmouth sometime midday tomorrow, but we've made between five and

seven, eight knots the whole way down. We're currently sailing wing on wing. The moon just came up to the east.

It's not a single cloud in the sky. The stars are out and

this is just, I can't help but think about my mom in these times actually. It's just such a

beautiful night and I haven't been sailing since August since our Canada trip and it's just a reminder of why I do this and why

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