Hello Everyone,
I’m sure everyone on land is looking forward to the weekend ahead, I think us onboard are looking forward to arriving in Qingdao!
It's been a very challenging first 2.5 days doing 150 tacks into the wind and a nasty choppy swell. Wind has followed us not as predicted in the forecast, to an extent that it's literally coming from where we want to go all the time, regardless of our positioning.
Once we round the bottom of Taiwan, it will certainly be a relief. A few of the crew are only just recovering from seasickness, trying to eat and drink fluids to regain energy. The fact that almost all the remaining crew have a bad flu bought onboard in Zhuhai, it hasn't exactly been the happy and cheerful Dare To Lead atmosphere we normally have onboard however, people are starting to get better, plus the latest update just showed our positioning, and we have gained a lot the last 12 hours, so we are back in the mix.
We are in the Ocean Sprint at the moment, until the bottom of Taiwan. So, we are hoping to grab some of the points available being three points, two points and one point, and as we know the extras are always a huge help. Perhaps for us the Scoring Gate could no longer be an option, so the Ocean Sprint will be important but regardless we will give 120% until the Race Finish!
Bye for now, Ryan, Charlie and our awesome but tired crew