Race 9 - Day 1
Crew Diary - Race 9, day 1
10 March

Trim to win! And with shifty winds there's no shortage of sail trimming to do tonight. (Trimming being angling the sails correctly for the wind angle - it’s a bit of a dark art)

After a pretty intense day of refresher training, putting in reefs and hoisting storm sails in 10kts of breeze, a delayed race start finally got under way just after night fall. With a rising moon on the horizon, Seattle is off to a flying start through the silver waves. We've never done a race start in dark before; of course everything is harder in the dark but one interesting opportunity it brings, is the ability to see how often other boats are calling trim. Punta del Este appears to check their mainsail every few minutes and has done so all night whereas whenever I look at Dare to Lead they always seem to have a light on their forestays. I like to think we take a slightly more balanced approach!

Must dash, still lots to do with all other boats so close...