Hanse 575 S/Y Baltico delivered from Gdańsk to Alghero

The crew joined S/Y Baltico in Gdańsk and left the next day. The plan was simple: keep the number of stops low and use the boat's speed. Bornholm was the first short stop, then Kiel for the canal transit into the North Sea, Dover at the narrowest point of the Channel, and the Strait of Gibraltar before the final leg across the western Mediterranean to Alghero on Sardinia.

Twenty-seven days from marina to marina for 2,761 nautical miles, from 21 June to 18 July 2019. That pace only works with a fast, well-prepared yacht, a crew used to long watches and a passage plan that treats weather windows, not port days, as the schedule.

Why a Hanse 575 needs a crew of four

A 57 foot yacht on a month-long passage is not a job for two. We sailed with four, among them skippers Piotr and Jerry, so there was always a rested pair on deck for the night watches and the busy waters of the Channel and Gibraltar. One thing to know about the Hanse 575: when the fuel tanks run low and the sea gets up, the engine can suck air instead of diesel. So we never let the tanks get low and always kept a bigger reserve than the plan said. The owner received the boat in Alghero ready for the Mediterranean season and was very happy with the job. In 2023 he asked us again, this time to take the same yacht from Sardinia to Croatia.