Race 5 - Day 19
Crew Diary - Race 5 - Day 19
10 January

Why did the baker have smelly hands?

Alex Cass

We are currently 400nm from the finish, Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam are about to take line honours and we, with a 48 hour handicap, need to average 8 knots to take first. We are currently sailing at about 9 but can we keep this up for two days? The forecast says no but our hearts say YES. Nail biting stuff, even here on the boat we are glued to the tracker.

Unfortunately, sailors are a superstitious lot talking about this sort of stuff is bad juju. I wouldn’t want to jinx the weather, especially after all the trouble we went to to get rid of those Leg 3 Jonahs, at the most exciting point in the race so far this year, I thought I’d write yet another food blog.

One of the recurring strands of thought I have running through my head on long night watches is what I will say when asked what I learned from a year sailing around the world. The most frequent answer presenting itself is “Hunger is the best spice”. I should say at the outset, I am rarely really hungry and that the food in general on Unicef has been excellent, occasionally exceptional (Sandra and Sophie busting out pizza and Pavlova for Dan’s birthday springs to mind). However, we have had a few stinkers, and these make for much more interesting reading. One example that springs to mind is a particular pasta dish with salmon, mushrooms and asparagus. The pasta was boiled into a homogeneous mass, the salmon was tinned complete with bones, the mushrooms were tinned and the consistency of boot leather, whilst the asparagus was as you would imagine it would be three weeks into a four week ocean crossing. Yet, in the full knowledge of this, I genuinely found it… palatable. With all this fresh air and exercise in fact I wolfed it down and asked for more when even Oliver Twist would have kept himself to a single serving.

I have in fact, only been let down once by this “super-seasoning” - 25th December 2019, a day that shall live in infamy. Many of you reading will have sat down to a special meal on this day surrounded by loved ones and friends, as did I. I suspect however, that with the exception of the 16 other people on board Unicef, not one of those reading this was served spam salad…

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, for Christmas lunch 2019, I was served (by Beau Bidwell for the record) wilting lettuce leaves and wobbly pink tinned ham. Our meal of Turkey, roast potatoes and trimmings, not to mention Christmas pudding and cake, was postponed until a less seasick crew member could be found to serve it. I have no qualms in naming Beau Bidwell as the culprit behind spamgate, because he has since emerged from his green haze as an exceptional cook – particularly for an 18 year old. In fact, I would say of the 40 crew we have had on Unicef so far, he may well be the stand-out chef, with a particular talent for turning corned beef into something presentable.

Food is a perennial topic of conversation, the frequency of conversations about favourite foods or first meals when we want increases exponentially after week two. The latter is an entirely pointless conversation - whatever anyone says at sea, the first thing everyone orders is steak and beer. Food is also the root of 90% of the (very few) arguments on board. Despite being a happy ship in general, we are already onto our third “Muffingate” since Cape Town and are considering banning small cake all together if that wouldn’t inevitably start a fourth.

Must go, I have a loaf of bread in the oven and am afraid of the ramifications should it burn.