Race 3 - Day 11
Crew Diary - Race 3 Day 11: Cape Town to Fremantle
11 November
Brrrrrrrr. I don't think a lot of us have ever experienced cold like this before. My experience has been that you get cold and then you get home and have a lovely warm bath or sit by an open fire, usually with a warming glass of red wine or at least go somewhere with some heat – not go down below into a cold boat, with no heating or water or way to warm up! We are all sleeping in our sleeping bags in all our gear – I fashioned a hat, balaclava and buff on my last off watch which gave the person waking me up quite a laugh – especially as I had pulled the hat over my face as well! As I type, condensation is dripping on the computer screen and my head - a lovely touch to add to the whole experience.
We have measured the temperature a few times and down below it was 3 degrees yesterday. As Jon Milne said “ahh, the temperature of a fridge, excellent”. This then prompted a discussion on if you could be any food in the fridge, what would you be....yes, we have reached that point after nearly two weeks at sea!
I for one am very grateful that Andy took the decision to go south – we are at quite an uncomfortable angle, but it is relatively calm and we are not being slammed around by waves which is good. We are making consistent course and speed and have been on one tack with the same sails up now for about 36 hours – good for the Race Viewer, but the lack of activity isn't helping the numb fingers and toes! We are racing our way to the Scoring Gate and hoping that we may get some points out of it - unfortunately at the moment it looks like we are going to be pipped to the post, but you never know! The likelihood of us making it to Fremantle on time is looking quite slim now, so we are all preparing ourselves for at least an extra 4 days or so at sea. This is playing havoc with my underwear allocation for this leg - I just don't know when to change now!
As the Victualler I must make a special mention to the leggers who have joined us for Leg 3. They have all made a fantastic effort in the galley. We have set up a ‘Come Dine With Me’ style galley experience so they clearly all have something to prove. Karen produced a concoction of biscuits, melted chocolate and condensed milk today, it was just delicious! Nick Davies made some excellent bread yesterday and Hugh Bevan did a big fried breakfast a few days ago. None of this is easy at this angle, so it is great to see the enthusiasm they bring to usually a rather tiresome job. As a galley old timer, I am currently auctioning off my shift next week in return for sauvignon blanc, cold beer and anything any of them want basically.
We are all really excited about welcoming some of the Greenings crew on board the good ship GREAT, it's good to hear that we are getting a RTW and some leggers – the more the merrier! I hope they will all enjoy the madness that is Team GREAT, we have plenty of latex animal masks to go around.
Ta ta for now, back I go onto the deck rolling around like the Michelin man and looking like a bank robber.
As always, love to all our friends, family and super supporters!
Pip O'Sullivan