Race 7 - Day 8
Skipper Report
02 March

Morning All,

We had a night of fish and tack! Yesterday's sailing was wet and bumpy, wet from the rain and bumpy from the wind-over-tide, but great to be on the flat again with the spinnaker up and making good mileage south. Last night was a bit more eventful. Firstly, our borrowed Swiss, Therie, was on the helm, happy in the knowledge that he was doing well and on a good course. Until he was slapped in the face with a flying fish! Suddenly, it all went wrong, and understandably so. Not long later, Josh and Chris were back at the helm station and another fish hit not one but both of them! What have the fish got against the GoToBermuda crew? There was the usual discussion about cooking these kamikaze fish, however I manage to talk them out of bone stew or more bone fillet. Yes flying fish are very bony.

The bigger issue last night was tack. Not the ‘moving of the boat through the wind’ type of tacking, which might have been an issue if we had, whilst flying the kite, but the tack line, which holds a corner (the tack, funnily enough) of the kite, kept giving up on it's own. Sailing along, jumping on a wave at 13 knots and pop, suddenly the tack was blowing in the wind looking for some poor unsuspecting crew to slap with it's large metal ring. This happened twice in the space of about three hours, which meant drop, re-pack and re-hoist, and then again. Just after we did it for the second time the sun appeared and Josh ruined my day by telling me there was a hole in the Code 3 and we had to do another drop and hoist the yankee again. Through all of this the GoToBermuda vampire crew were superb. Up at all hours, and on the case with record-breaking speed for dropping and prepping for the re-hoist, let alone wooling in magic time.

Thinking about the evening, maybe there is nothing wrong with our tack, but the flying fish are targeting the Talasker clip holding the kites to the tack line as well as the crew! Ahhh problem solved! Time to organise a ceasefire with the fish.

On that note, I am off to bed for some sleep...and maybe a re-think!

Cheers,

Chat later

Wavy, Fabian and the fishy crew