Race 6 - Day 19
Crew Diary - Race 6 Day 19
10 February

Seattle Blog Race 6 Day 23

Written by Timothy Morgan

I procrastinated writing my blog yesterday on the grounds there really was nothing to write about. It’s been a very slow race at times with the wind angles and speeds holding for days at a time meaning no sail evolutions are required. Keeping the boredom away has made this race, mentally the most challenging so far

Last night's graveyard shift was an exception. The wind was building and the boat, flying under our Code 2 Spinnaker. I was nearly thrown out of my bunk at the wake-up-call as the boat rounded up and came close to a broach, where the boat loses steering due to being overpowered and turned into the wind by its sails. Usually quite a violent manoeuvre to say the least. I could hear orders being shouted around the deck to get the boat back under control as I clung on to the last illusions of sleep in my bunk. I was given the motivation to get up when I then heard Lyndsay calling down the hatch to Dave in his bunk apologising for waking him but um, the port steering cables have snapped. As ever Dave was completely unphased by this information and came up to assess the damage…

For those of you who aren’t familiar with a Clipper 70’s steering setup, the helm is connected to the rudder via a series of chains and cables on pulleys. If one side breaks the other can continue to function without a problem and indeed those of us who saw the starboard helm washed away on Leg 3 saw this as more of an inconvenience than a disaster. Helming on the lowside is a very wet business! We adopted a course deeper down wind to avoid pushing too hard on our remaining steering.

About 10 minutes after watch change, a new assault began. Kiki has been working very hard on controlling her phobia of flying fish although I’m afraid to say she may have been pushed past breaking point when one flew out of the dark and hit her leg. Its arrival was announced with a scream, erupting the cockpit into complete chaos.

But the fish had bigger plans.

Before anyone could contain themselves and remove the first, in flew another and another, bringing with them complete mayhem. It was as though somebody had unleashed a swarm of invisible wasps on deck as nobody knew where or when the next was coming from. I have to say from the helm it was hilarious (if a little distracting) until one flew all the way over and hit my boot at which point I too lost it and came very close to a crash gybe. The dust pans were on deck in force to try and flick as many of these freaky creatures back into the ocean as possible but the fish were not cooperative to say the least. All this whilst surfing waves at up to 18kts in gale force winds and a rolling sea state.

With wind speed still rising the chaos was interrupted by a call to drop the spinnaker and use a yankee trimmed to Code 4. Extra heavy weight Spinnaker mode, the wind now being well over the recommended speed for any of our actual codes. Doing an evolution whilst being pelted with fish was an experience for all of us. A textbook drop saw the code safely down without damage and a not-so-textbook hoist saw the yankee wrapped around the anti-wrap net but all was sorted soon enough. As we finished trimming our new headsail a silver dart skimmed off Dave’s face as it made a bid for the helm. He quickly returned downstairs for some ‘urgent navigation’ and a cup of tea.