Race 1 - Day 6
Crew Diary - Race 1, Day 6
07 September

Qingdao calling. Pip (Martin Mills) is Blog Master today! I am not very good at tech and this is the first blog I have done in my life, so apologies in advance for typos etc. I am sitting by the galley (kitchen) watching the ‘Mothers’ prepare lunch. I was on Mother duty at the end of yesterday as one of our crew members was out of action, so I know it is a challenge to cook for 20 people when the boat is rolling around. Large pots of boiling water are a particular hazard. The crew on deck need constant hydration and feeding so there is no time to get bored. I would personally prefer to be on the foredeck with waves breaking over the bow changing sails than sweating in the galley. Today the Mothers made pancakes for breakfast and I had mine with Nutella - DELICIOUS!

Now on to why we are all here – the sailing. We had a bumpy ride close hauled tacking into the wind up the English channel. The waves were quite steep with Qingdao falling off the occasional big wave with a crash with anything not lashed below deck crashing about. As we are racing we are pushing hard so the boat was at quite an angle making moving about on deck and below quite a challenge. We had several headsail changes, which is quite physical work as some of the bigger sails weigh several hundred kilos. The sails have to be manhandled from below deck and then hanked on at the bow with waves crashing across the foredeck. The first lesson to be learnt is not to venture onto the foredeck without full foul weather gear (foulies) and being clipped onto the yacht.

It was quite a relief when we could finally head down wind and get the kite (Spinnaker) flying in a favourable 25 knot wind. We must have been one of the first yachts in the fleet to get the kite up as we rapidly gained several places and appeared to get back into the lead. Having built up a lead we decided to do a dog leg to pass through the scoring gate. We were initially flying the Code 2 (medium size kite) but due to an unfavourable wind shift we took down the kite and put up a Yankee which meant we could get a better angle on the wind to pass through the Scoring Gate. We were neck and neck with Visit Sanya, China but we just beat them to the gate by ten minutes. Amazing that after several hundred miles of racing we were just ten minutes ahead. So we have three points on the board and are now back on the race line heading downwind at speed, surfing down some of the bigger waves. It is exhilarating and moral is high – who doesn’t like to be a winner! We think we are now in second place (it can be quite difficult to say as yachts could be out of range of our electronics or in stealth mode) after a few dramas in the night with a headsail change but we will continue to push hard as we would love to have a podium finish.

I will sign off now as lunch is ready – Fritatta - potatoes, onions, chorizio etc. It smells delicious but will we have time to eat before the next headsail change?

The crew today are all well. Our minds are fully focused on racing and pushing the boat hard but as we get to our bunks after a watch change we think of our loved ones back home and send you all our love and best wishes.

Yours Aye!

Pip