‘ello folks,

Well, I have awoken to find a fully written blog ...enjoy... I’m off to chill my boots on deck (I’m actually in crocs)

A note from the AQP

A job earned out of thin air

What's the skippers and the mates job?

It's a question we are always asked, and maybe you're asking it yourself. The official answer is along the lines of being responsible for the ship and crew, oversee safety and run the tactics and strategy of the race... blablabla, boring. The unofficial answer is that we decide on the best way to run the boat, set a number of rules (standing orders, crew aspirations, job roles, watch leader orders...etc) which become the guidelines of every moment of the ship's life. The crew sweat and sleep upon those and our job (Josh's and I) becomes mostly to oversee that those guidelines are respected. That, Jacqueline, doesn't involve too much chit chat on the helm, that Harpo doesn't stock the GDP of Sudan in the form of ginger beer and chocolate bars in the bilges and that Haz and Manuel have at least a bi-weekly shower (I know right? What an exciting job!).

Now that the worlders are sharp on most aspects of running the boat, Josh and I become redundant most of the time, we only step in when some bad habits start to appear in the running of the boat. Whether they are unsafe (one hand for you, one hand for the boat...etc) or just negligent (when the A frame disappears under a pile of laundry) or even worse (showering in the galley).

So why are we still around you may ask? Well, first someone has to be responsible on the paper (sorry Josh), but also we have to decide on tactics and on the route to follow.

The route to follow is pretty simple, it's a compass bearing that the helmsman will have to steer to. The decision on this bearing is made upon the current wind, and the wind to come where that bearing is taking us. For land people, that's your co-pilot telling you to turn left or right at the next corner (except here we don't have corners or street names to follow here, we have to make up our own). Now the course to steer is only the tip of the iceberg, the biggest part being the sail plan, meaning which combination of sails we have to use to maximise our speed on that course: that's your gearbox in your car.

The beauty of choosing your sail plan is that there is no right answer. But it's a beauty in disguise, because it is then hard to be sure you have the best sail plan at any given time. Right now for example we are flying our Yankee 2, Staysail and Mainsail with one Reef. There is 25kts of wind established, gusting at 30kts, our AWA is around 90 degrees and we are doing around 12kts average. Not bad right? But when you're racing, you always ask yourself: how could we go faster?

"Why don't you shake out a reef to increase canvas?" Nice try, but the trick is that an overpowered boat isn't necessarily faster.

"Why don't you just try to shake out the reef and if it's not better then take the reef back in?" Well we are on a starboard tack, and (for reasons I'm not going to give the detail here, otherwise I'll lose the five people who are still reading this blog) Ideally we need to be on a port tack to take our Reef 1 (we tacked yesterday when the front hit, to take that reef outside of the Dell Latitude Rugged Ocean Sprint.) Taking our Reef 1 on starboard tack would crunch the sail, it's not a huge deal, but if we want to keep our sails in good condition, which is important, it's the kind of small thing that does matter.

So since I arrived on watch, I have these two columns in my head with the following titles "shake out the Reef" and "don't do it" and I go adding notes in each column, all the notes put together draw options, each options having its own risk/benefit level, until I find the more rational choice.

As I type, the wind just increased, so for now the call is easy, we keep the Reef, but the wind will eventually ease, and Josh is going to wake up. We're going to argue about shaking out the Reef (in general, I'm the one trying to save our sails, he's the one advocating to trash them, it's a good balance). Eventually the wind will pick up or ease and give us a clear answer or maybe not and we'll have to make a call, like thumbling in the darkness.

Remember how I said it was a rational choice earlier? Well it's not all that simple, sometimes you have to trust your guts, your feelings. All those things only driven by time spent at sea, experience and let's be honest, a fair share of luck.

Skippers, first mates, our job is to gamble on wind, on thin air, something you cannot touch or see or barely predict and that changes constantly.

See why it's easier to answer: We are the ones in charge of safety onboard.

‘ello, pretty good summary don’t you think? Except the one about me trashing the sails.. If you remember the only one we have trashed is our Code 2 and I wasn’t on watch, but in the fairness of balance, I have been on watch for five Kite wraps. So it’s all pretty balanced. Hope you’re all enjoying your weekend, take care of each other.

Josh, Hugo and the crew of Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam

Song of the day: Radiohead - Karma Police