Race 6 - Day 5
Crew Diary - Freckles, Ferntickles and Murfles
28 January

Freckles, ferntickles, murfles, rannyspreckles, brunny spots, crackles and frantittles are all words to describe freckles, something I have always had in abundance and inherited from my father. I think he also passed on his love of travel and adventure, as well as his love of craft, making things, disassembling and rebuilding things, driving and cars. He was a carpenter and machine setter and right up to his last days last year never stopped wanting to fix things. His birthday is in two days and he would have been aged 90. When I’m occupied in some job on the boat that requires some practical, but less intensive concentration, I think of him and hope he would have been proud of me.

There is something magical about sailing by the stars, even in training when there is a freezing northerly wind blowing in your face. With your body open to the elements, cold hand wrapped around the helm, feet astride for balance whilst searching the horizon for possible boats or marker lights, and feeling the wave that is just starting to push the boat off course. However on this race cold is not a problem, rather the oppressive heat and humidity sap your energy and ensure that your body and clothes are kept in a permanent state of wetness. But we are Unicef crew and everyone on board has a hunger for racing and winning, and will do all they can to make the boat go faster. Yesterday we had a bird (a Booby) sit on the Windex (our wind direction indicator) after circling many times around the mast. He or she sat there for some time which required some fluttering about to hang on in the good wind blowing at the time. We named the bird ‘Tenacity’, as that is what our Unicef team has in abundance, and we just hoped it would not damage our Windex.

Sailing is just wonderful. Even in the coldest, bleakest of times there is something uplifting about the wind in your face, the unending horizon, and wave after wave of deep, deep ocean. In this race across from Australia to China in tropical waters, the air is warm on your face day and night. The colour of the ocean never ceases to amaze me being almost indigo blue. At night as the waves break on the bow there is a most wonderful sight of sprinkled stars reflected in the spume of water as the broken wave passes along the side of the boat. In this part of the world there are just so many stars to see it is incredible.

Yesterday was particularly frustrating as having caught up and passed several boats in the fleet we then experienced the dreaded windhole and spent much of the day watching the boats catch us up again, whilst trying everything we could to get more speed in the slight winds. Tenacity is our trait so we continue to press on and make progress on catching the leading boats. We all want to win and get that podium spot for Unicef!