Race 5 - Day 12
Crew Diary - ​Squeezing into foulies
31 December

So, today sees me on Mother Watch with Bruce. We’ve survived breakfast together and both watches have been fed. The boat is cleanish and smells of crisp apple anti-bac. The rest of the fleet is one day behind, or a day ahead dependent on whether we started together.

Getting into foulies is always a chore, for the late Night Watch, I found myself chuckling to myself on succeeding in finally getting a leg into the sallopette leg, only to discover soon after that my left foot was poking out the right trouser leg leaving little room for another. More bouncing off the walls, getting them firstly off, and then on, the correct legs. Getting into the foulie smock is like being re-birthed. The Velcro on the sleeping bag, has to have been designed especially to annoy sleeping crew-mates and to stop you falling off the top bunk by destroying the merino base layer’s fabric, clinging to the sleeping bag and letting you out with a slow ripping noise.

Another layer of clothing applied, and we’re about to spend New Year’s Day rounding Tasmania. Stuart kindly gave up his turn at the wheel and asked whether I’d be happy ‘helming in the new year’. That box ticked, for whatever good it does. Memorable and meaningful to me nonetheless. We’ve been down to as far as 44.5 degrees south flirting with penalties and hopeful of whale, iceberg and penguin-spotting.

We’ve recently been surfing and Vod and Simon managed to clock an average speed of 15 knots for the entire last hour of our watch, the evening before last. Huge fun, requiring lots of focus. Winds were hitting the 42 knot mark. I finally understand that hydrodynamics play a more important role than aerodynamics with a simple explanation by Bruce of the changing ‘centre of lateral resistance’, due to hull profile, during a heel. Helming is much more predictable these days. By no means easier. Today’s marked by ‘power steering’ using Stuart’s arm assist when he finds me hanging full-weight on one side of the wheel or dead-lifting the other side. It reduces the feel but the correct effect was achieved bearing away on yet another long surf. We’re experimenting with endurance surfing rather than going for speed alone. Better late than never.

Back of the fleet and all feeling happy. 2020 has a nice ring to it, marking our occasion of the rounding of Tazzie. We’re keen on warming temperatures as we make our way north, soon. In terms of number of days at sea, we’re now half-way along this leg of the race. Beating and windholes are to be expected on our way up the east coast of Aus (The Great Barrier Reef! no less), hopefully avoiding those ‘roll cloud’ storms like the one off Punta Del Este. We’ll all be on the lookout for them.

Yesterday, a seal popped up nearby, to get a look at us, and squeals of delight emanated from the cockpit from Shanelle’s lips. It made off like a dolphin with Stuart - not sure what he’d seen.

The current helm is periodically drenching the cockpit crew in salt water. This creates a pretty waterfall effect down the companionway steps. The sun is out, the wind is howling in the rigging, sounding differently pitched, in sync with the apparent wind speed.

Michelle is scratching for an apple to lather in ‘crunchy’ peanut-butter. Makes a fine job of reducing the amount of peanut butter. A little like Bettina’s penchant for Nutella balanced, double the thickness of her toast, like a plate spinner at a circus, keeping it from falling on her clothes.

Baked a loaf of bread today, didn’t bother to knock it back, and wait again for it to rise back to look identical, at least to me. Why do we knock back bread? The bread-maker doesn’t, does it?

Managed to wash, hair, face and hands in dishwashing liquid today. Not sure whether I’ll persist the fad.

We wish all who read and follow these blogs a very Happy New Year. To our loved ones, you know who you are.

Kevin’s work of genius with the cafetiere follows pictorially…this after an unscheduled drop in altitude by previously mentioned vessel.