Crew Blog

The things you hear…

23 June 2008

We’re still neck and neck with the orange boat. Hull & Humber are currently off our starboard side, somewhere between the beam and the quarter, depending on how well we’re doing at the time. We’ve been like this for days now. Every time they seem to be getting closer, we head up, and when they start becoming smaller again we wonder whether it’d be quicker to bear away too, so we adjust our course again slightly. 

The radio schedule has just happened, with Duggie from New York sounding very chipper as he chatted to the fleet, swapping numbers and stories. I’m not sure Konrad the camera man will be that pleased now we all know he’s blocked the heads on Hull & Humber. Bet he doesn’t film that!

The only boats we heard over the radio were New York, Qingdao and Hull & Humber: the rest of the fleet now being out of range of the VHF radio. The fleet are often too far away for us to hear on the radio, but usually because they’re too far in front. For once we don’t mind too much not being able to hear them!

The email schedule has just come in, and although we’ve not lost miles to the boats behind us, both Qingdao and New York have managed to pull away to 8 miles and 5 miles ahead respectively. There’s currently a discussion as to how far you can see on a clear day, as we have both of those boats in our sights just off the port bow. According to the almanac, from a height of 30m you can see 11 miles. So there you go.

While the on watch are busy re-trimming and trying to find the optimum VMG – ie the most direct and fastest course – the galley team are desperately trying to prepare a meal that does not contained tinned ‘ham’. I think the on-deck crew might have the easier task…