Race 2 - Day 28
Skipper Report
13 October

Day 28:

With under 24 hours to the finish line, we hit some phenomenal cloud formations. These clouds brought intense lightning, thunder and lots of wind. The storm came in different waves and started with two waves of tubular clouds that brought some wind and rain. We prepared the sails and they crossed with around 30 knots of wind, which lasted a few minutes, then the wind dropped and became more constant. After a couple of hours sailing with our Code 2 Spinnaker and full Main, we saw another squall with the same tubular formation, but this time much darker clouds. We started dropping the sails as soon as possible, when the winds arrived sooner than suspected; intense winds of 60 knots and heavy rain. We were in the middle of reducing sails when we broached by the force of the wind and even if it only lasted 10 minutes, the squall managed to damage our spinnaker. After that we reduced the sails to the minimum, and then we had three or four more of those squalls reaching 80 knots of wind and blindingly copious amounts of rain. This time fully prepared, we continued sailing in a sea surrounded by flashes of lighting, thunder, strong wind and rain. Not long to Punta del Este now!

Kind regards,

Jeronimo