Race 6 - Day 1
Skipper Report
23 January

A slow and quite tricky start to the race so far, with the wind never quite steady enough to get settled in for long before more careful work is needed. We held on as long as we could last night to try and lay Virtual Mark Stellio but had to put in two quick tacks to get around in the end. The Swiss Watch executed these very efficiently, allowing us to minimise our losses and set up a morning where we were in sight of most of the fleet and able to keep it simple: sail fast and steer straight and slowly recover the miles. Since then more light and fickle airs have forced splits in the fleet, with Clipper 70s popping in and out on our AIS all afternoon. Just now the question of which tack we should be on is very difficult to answer, with the potential to lose a lot by the wrong choice, and no clear solutions. Just a little while ago Unicef crossed our bow, so we are watching them (as no doubt they are watching us) and weighing each other’s progress.

Around all of this life onboard goes on… one of our number (I'll spare him from naming and shaming) is showing an excellent lifejacket sunburn. Jo Rooney has prepared an apple crumble for tonight (Nick Hussey, if you're reading this - the crumble top may be even better than yours, but I didn't smell the apples frying in butter and cinnamon) and the cloud collectors handbook has been passed around as we debate whether we can see 'undulatus' or not.

All the best from Imagine your Korea,

Sam and Rob.