Race 13 - Day 5
Skipper Report
27 July

Good morning all,

This is the last blog from me here so I suppose I've got to send my thanks out to all of you for reading and following and for your support. I've been very lucky to have been sailing this year with a supportive and good-humoured bunch of people, we've learned a lot from each other onboard HotelPlanner.com, and generally have had a great time.

We all have our peculiarities, we've had our personal and shared highs and lows, our moments of disappointment and possibly our proudest achievements. The storm force winds, the wind holes, the phenomenal waves and the calm seas, the first places and the last places, and the beauty of nature.

I am so proud of my crew, we've had over 60 people onboard this year at various stages, but a special mention to the round the world crew, whom I've shared everything with over the past eleven months. Thanks for being just super and for looking after me.

I have come so far this year, but I haven't realised it yet, it's going to take some time to sink in. I have memories of earlier legs that almost seem surreal. The spinnaker wraps, the broaches, the breakages, the fixing things, the injuries the hugs and the tears - did that really happen?

In other news, we had some smashing sailing yesterday all day and into the evening with the Code 2 (Mediumweight Spinnaker) up seeing hourly averages of 12 and 13 knots and top speeds of 17. We had a dolphin display off of the Bristol channel - jumping all around us and in the wake behind. Both Dare To Lead and GREAT Britain are keeping us honest and crew are working hard for every ounce of speed. Just now some fog has rolled in and we still have more breeze than the forecast predicts, so off to make the most of it,

Conall