Race 3 - Day 18
Crew Diary - Race 3 Day 18: Cape Town to Fremantle
18 November

Dmitry Papulin
Dmitry Papulin
Team Sanya Serenity Coast
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After most of our recent blogs were stating how I corner my crew mates to write it and Tom saying I'm good in delegating, I figured it's time for me to write something myself again. Last couple days were really eventful.

Yesterday we had to do some preventative maintenance on the forestay. We had a fantastic team for that: Keith “structural engineer” Cox, Glenn “I can go anywhere and fix anything” Manchett, Tom “finger in every pie” Stanley. They did an amazing job and fixed everything without slowing the boat down by a single knot. Special shout out goes to Glenn. His bravery knows no limits and he volunteers for jobs that no one else on the boat could possibly do. He is certainly our most valuable player. And as I type these words Glenn is being very kind and making us a cup of ground coffee. Another great skill of his that we all appreciate!

We are finally experiencing the Southern Ocean the way it should be – wind blowing from the back and impressive rolling swells. Helming our beautiful Clipper 70 while riding these massive waves during the day can and should be fun. Doing so during the pitch black nights can sometimes (often? always?) be a little terrifying. Imagine this: you see nothing ahead of you – it's all black. You have 5-6 instruments supplying you some useful data, but they are lagging a bit, so you have to mostly rely on what you feel. You feel the angle of heel and how the wind hits you on the cheek. Every few seconds you feel sudden strong pressure on the steering wheel right and left. When the wave lifts the stern, the boat accelerates quickly and you feel like it's falling into a void while and the water is roaring on either side. You have to make sense of all these within fractions of a second and steer safe and fast. A lapse in concentration might result in a crash gybe and that could be your race over because of potential damage to the boat and injuries to the crew. It could really be nerve wrecking.

This morning was packed with action. Probably the most intense morning of the whole race so far.

We were running downwind with yankee and staysail (hope by now our supporters learnt all the sails names!) pondering whether hoisting spinnaker would be a good idea. The wind was blowing at 25-30 knots. Yes, we would go a bit faster and in a bit more favourable direction. But it's going to be much more risky in this wind and a single mistake might cost much more than potential gain. Eventually we decide to go for it. We are in the Ocean Sprint after all and are keen to push to get some extra points. Without going into too much detail, there are about 30 little things you need to get right to go from yankee and staysail to flying a spinnaker. When the wind is light you can make some mistakes and fix them along the way. When the wind is strong there is no room for error - 30 knots of wind generate about 10 times more pressure on the sails than 10 knots of wind. There are massive loads on all the sails, knots and rigging – everything becomes really dangerous. Everyone should know exactly what they are doing. The hoist goes well. The ride under the spinnaker proved to be as intense as as the hoist itself. There are times when we are sitting on the deck and have nothing to do. But this time we didn't have a spare person: helmsman and backup helmsman (to help to push on the wheel in case the load is too big), spinnaker trimmer and two strong people on the coffee grinder, one person on a main and another one on a vang in case we need to depower mainsail urgently to avoid broaching. We were speeding at up to 25 knots. Then the wind picked up beyond the point that we could control the boat under spinnaker and the time came to drop it down. It was one of the most dramatic drops in my memory. But thanks to our skills and great communication within the team (that probably would sound like panicked shouting to an outside observer) we did another 30 little things needed to complete the evolution and went back to yankee and staysail. Hopefully all that superhuman effort was not in vain and earned us couple extra miles of lead.

As I'm trying to write this blog Hefner is yet again repairing her glasses tying 10 double half hitch knots to hold them in one piece. She is also telling us some very specialized joke about a piece of string pretending to be a frayed knot. It is actually quite funny, but only if you are an expert in knots and Tall Ships maintenance as Hefner is. So I'm not writing down the full text of the joke and explanation of why it's funny – it is however available upon request.

Time for me to go and get some rest before the next exciting watch!