GORDON BENNETT 2018: RACE TO THE FINISH

In the end, we decided to land in the evening. Decreasing our accomplished distance by flying through the night did not seem a good idea, and we didn’t want to risk a night landing either. Rising as high as we could to gain some speed and cover more distance was more like it.

So, we got rid of all the water and ballast we no longer needed and pushed our balloon to its pressure ceiling – which was much higher that we had expected! In FL180, we had still seven sandbags left – a good lesson learned for future flights. Two hours before sunset, we gently pulled the parachute and descended for landing.