Race 7 - Day 6
Crew Diary - Fun, laughter and the upwind struggle
29 February
So it seems like soooo long since we arrived victorious into Subic Bay. We like to aspire to a work hard, play hard ethos here on WTC Logistics, so we certainly celebrated hard in the Philippines.
We were informed that the next race was to be a windward-leeward short race, of eight to ten days. Well, having been beating upwind in a confused sea state with 25 knots from the very direction we want to go, and a current pushing us the wrong way, it doesn’t seem like a short race yet. The bumpy ride has been filled with squalls, resulting in both reefing and tacking frenzies, the living conditions below decks are uncomfortable: noisy, hot, wet, and at random intervals you are left weightless as the boat lurches off a wave and then everything comes crashing down.
The galley is dangling at 45 degrees and it is a feat of endurance, patience and teamwork to keep everyone fed and watered. Even making a brew and getting it on deck is a two person job! First you make the drinks in the galley and once the liquid is in the cup it can’t be put down or it will spill. Then you shuffle across to the stairwell, leaning your bum/side against anything that will hold and pass the cup to a friend who has perched on the stairs. They hand it up to the crew on deck who guard it for you until this process has been repeated for each individual cup, then you climb up too, hoping a wave hasn’t broken over the side and filled your cup with seawater (surprisingly common)!
To be honest, I wrote that a day ago and since then the wind has swung around so that the boat has leveled off, so much that we even put up a kite after breakfast and we have been powering along downwind since. The team is happy, munching on Pringles, Skittles and Cheesy Puffs and the trauma of the upwind struggle is thankfully fading into a distant memory as we enjoy some proper champagne sailing.
Paul and I are battling through in the galley today; I managed a cheeky helming session with the kite up after lunch, which was fabulous to be sailing along with the wind on the beam and no longer heeled over at a 45 degree angle of dangle.
Every lunchtime we have happy hour and the last few days’ entertainment has been a game where we each had to put down a fun fact about ourselves on a piece of paper and then we took it in turns to pull them out of a hat and guess who wrote it. We discovered many hilarious and interesting facts, including that Danny Boy sang a Christmas solo on Radio 3, Mike used to walk goats for their enrichment, Sophie used to fly gliders and Nigel enjoyed streaking home from the pub!
A couple of days ago Jazz had her big 30th birthday celebration on board. We all surprised her with a unicorn and flowery head gear at breakfast (all credit to Nigel who embraced the pinkest of pink unicorn headband and managed to keep it intact for a whole 6 hour shift, despite some serious sideways squally rain), a card filed with life advice for a 30 year old and a cinnamon roll cake complete with candles. In the next few days the lovely Maeva (our on board reporter) has her birthday too! Maeva is with us for this race, shame she can’t stay for longer as she has fitted right in with the team.
A cold has struck the boat and I think pretty much everyone except Rich and Dan have succumbed to the dreaded boat lurgy (aka Man Flu)!
This evening we had “proper” bangers and mash - I have finally won on the victualling front and banished frankfurters for this race, they went down a treat! Then just as we were cleaning up the galley the call came to drop the kite as we were rounding the top mark. The galley floor has been scrubbed, all the pots are washed and put away and now I’m about to get tucked up in my bunk for my full night “mother watch” sleep. Better pull my lee cloth up tight as once again I’m on the high side and once again we’re heading into the wind and Black Betty is bouncing along balanced on a knife edge.
Just after I crawled into my bunk, Dan came past excitedly waving the latest run sheet; finally we are catching the fleet and have made up 48 miles on Qingdao, 32 miles on Unicef etc etc. Despite currently being in last position the mood on the boat is great and team spirits are high: we are all doing our best to keep BB going as fast as the conditions allow and we’re confident this won’t be our finishing position for this race (but even if it is, we have given it our all and have had a blast)!
So watch this space, or just the race viewer, through which incidentally you guys at home get updates way more often than we do. On the boat we only get to know where the fleet is every six hours!
Love to all my friends and family back home,
Rach xx