Race 7 - Day 2
Crew Diary - Race 7 Day 2
25 February

I'm on galley watch today with Gregorio and was informed at breakfast that it's pancake day today. I asked Greg if they have pancake day in the US, his reply: “Everyday is pancake day in the US.” Lunch and dinner will of course now be pancaked themed but first we need some sleep.

This time yesterday we were preparing to switch from Code 1 to Yankee 1 as the wind built and changed direction around us. Only minutes from this taking place a gust overpowered us and on the helm, I found the wheel was on full lock to port whilst the boat decided to ignore this and gracefully rounded up to starboard. Of course the boat was broaching and as we did so the Kite collapsed letting out an almighty crack. This gave me the chance to get us pointing back downwind but it was too late. Upon hearing several curses I glanced up, saw a rip along the entire leach (trailing edge) of the sail and I too joined in such expressive speech. We dropped it ASAP to avoid any further damage but it remains possible the Code 1 won’t fly again this race. Sorry to Dawn our sail repairer!

Other than this not so minor blow to our sail plan options, evolutions have been coming thick and fast compared to last race and going very well. Hopefully this shows on the race tracker as we find ourselves in the front half of the fleet for a change. Lets just hope we can keep ourselves up here now!

20.00 Boat Time;

We went big on the pancakes for lunch today. In fact we were cooking for nearly 2 and a half hours but with the speaker blasting tunes in the red light cafe, time flew by. We like to think that if we were a business we'd be very successful as the same customers seem to come back every day. Queenie seems to have taken on the role of assistant media director and spent almost the entire time filming us with any camera she could find. Off to bed now for hopefully some uninterrupted sleep although I hear there’s a sailchange planned for the early hours so perhaps not.