Slow progress for Jamaica - Race News

Slow progress for Jamaica

26 August 2008

The crew of non-professional sailors onboard Jamaica, racing back from Madeira to Cowes, are having a frustrating time of it at the moment. While some may have predicted a fast downwind race following the prevailing winds up the coast of Africa, Portugal and into the Bay of Biscay, the reality has been quite the opposite. Light winds and slow progress have been the order of the day as skipper Simon Bradley explains in his latest blog.

Monday 25 August

Day 4 of the race back to Cowes and it’s been a frustrating time so far, light winds from the north and north-east have not made it easy for us. We have approximately 800 nautical miles to go and the forecast does not show much of a change from these northerly winds, but never mind we will continue on with the Yankee 1, staysail and full main set. We started off from Madeira with a good breeze that required the Yankee 3 and a couple of reefs, since then we’ve changed up to the Yankee 2 and Yankee 1, shaking the reefs out on the way.

The crew are continually improving their helming and trimming skills under the watchful eyes of Jan and Rachel. These aren’t the only skills that are improving; we’ve also had some very good and very interesting meals emerging from the galley. The cries of, “I’ve never made bread before!” have been replaced by discussions on favourite bread making recipes and the best way to knead the dough. [As they do on the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race, the crew take it in turns to take on mother watch to keep their fellow crewmembers fed. That includes baking bread fresh every day.]

A large ship appeared on the horizon yesterday morning, the first we had seen in a while, and of course it was heading straight for us. After a brief conversation on the VHF radio, confirming that they had seen us, it passed safely astern. They then called again to ask if we had the latest weather information - very kind.

We have enough breeze to make 7 knots in the right direction so, even though the sunshine of yesterday has been replaced by grey skies, we’re not complaining.