Crew Blog

Spinnakers up, down, all around

03 March 2008

Wow, woke up this morning after an uninterrupted three hours sleep, calmer conditions and the positive news that the scheds are showing us in sixth place. But we have to temper our delight with a little caution; knowing by now that the scheds do not take account of any tactical moves the Clippers make and we still have a long, long way to go – over 3,400 miles.  Anyway we are now getting some great distances which means we shouldn’t run out of food, as we joked (!) earlier in the trip. 

After a spinnaker sail change which needs both watches, I settled into my cosy bag once more expecting at least three and a half hours sleep. What seemed seconds later, I found myself falling out of bed and running to the hatch to the sound of Billy shouting, “It doesn’t matter what you have got on, get here quick before we lose the sail.” I wasn’t worried about what I had on, quite the reverse!!  Anyway we retrieved the sail, which had torn, and Jaqs, our sail repairer, got out the sewing machine while the on watch team put up another kite, as they are affectionately known. Things seemed to settle down a little in the afternoon, Marty went out to the end of the boom to re-rig the topping lift, which had decided to unclip itself earlier that day. But it was another lull before the storm and later that day, after another near broach incident, Marty made the decision to take down the spinnaker altogether and put up a foresail before it got dark.

Our last watch was incident free and lovely Lyn gave my sore aching shoulders a massage before I went to my bed. All in all, a very busy and tiring day for team WA.

Eileen Moore