‘ello folks,
Right, it's crunch time for us to decide which Dell Latitude Rugged Ocean Sprint to take (yes Derek, more tac-tics). So, in this race there are two Scoring Gates (first come first serve basis) and then the sprint we are only allowed to register for one sprint either the northbound or southbound sprint, and we must register for which sprint we want to go for by 0700 UTC today. This obviously opens up a can of worms from would we prefer to have an upwind or downwind sprint and depending how much you trust the forecast, strong or light winds?
But the biggest 'play' I can see is if all the fleet decide to go for let’s say the northbound sprint and we decide to go south and (a big and) we are the only one to choose that sprint, then we would effectively 'waltz' (Jane Ross) into 3 points so we could concentrate on sailing the shortest distance to the finish... make sense? So, tonight me and Hugo will be staring intently at the weather report... pretty much like a dog chasing its own tail! trying to weigh up the pros and cons of each and trying to do a *'Kansas city shuffle' with the fleet.
Well, life on board has been, at times, an easy adjustment and, at times, difficult for some, myself included. Having to adjust to nighttime sailing and this compounded with the fact it being a new moon meaning we are bumbling and tripping over each others tether lines and ankles hitting bar tight running back stay lines when moving round the cockpit. For others it's a change of diet, whether it be the amount they can eat or let's just say an increase of roughage is playing a part aka deck frogs! But, what everyone has noticed is the amount of care we emphasise on each other whether it be slapping the sun cream on or wearing the right clothing but the biggest difference, I think, is how much (good) fluids we are drinking instead of beer, wine, soft drinks etc... It's kind of like doing dry January every couple of weeks. Then lastly everyone is very happy to get their afternoon naps because the days are long and relentless there is no escape from your duties, crew or the heat. Last but not least we saw some dolphins although Jacqueline swears she saw a whale. Also, we got a little too close to Visit Sanya, China in the night, sorry if we spilt or rushed your tea, and thanks for understanding Seumas. and oddly for us we have done much tacking through the night and we are starting to get the knack of running backstays, which is only a good thing!
Well, morning has broken and we find ourselves in the lead pack of boats but unable to compete course and speed wise so we are busy trying to work out what the boats around us are doing to get more speed and 10 degrees better course... it's quite the mind boggle to put it mildly! Hopefully for the next blog we would have passed the corner of Luzon and I'll be chatting/typing to you from an angle.
Josh, Hugo and the crew of Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam
*Kansas city shuffle is a reference to my all time favourite film song of the day - Jack Johnson - Do you remember