Race 7 - Day 6
Skipper Report
29 February

Hola from the Yellow boat!

We are rounding the Nansei Islands south of Japan, half way for this Race 7. Then we'll turn south in the direction of Subic Bay on a similar course that took us north to this position. We have been sailing upwind (against the wind is not the most comfortable position for these boats or us!) for most of this race and instead of having the opposite situation on our way back to Subic bay. This kind of weather is going to send us the same upwind conditions that we had on the way up, back to the 30-35 boat degree angle. Our "mothers" today Cristina and Ingo are going to love it!

Attention to detail when racing is important, but sometimes we make mistakes because we are concentrating on something else or in the early hours not concentrating at all. Really early this morning we missed a mark turn while fighting to put the spinnaker down and we had to turn the boat back to make the mark with the loss of two nautical miles from our competitors. Two miles might sound like not much on a short race of 1,600 nautical miles but it takes a lot of focus and effort to fight from every inch from our closer competitors, Visit Sanya, China, Zhuhaiand Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam. The good news is that slowly we are recovering what was lost.

Changing this yacht’s massive sails is always an event on board and the biggest event of all is dropping the spinnaker down. We need all hands available, and it has to work like the clock or we can end damaging the spinnaker or dropping it in the water. Then once it is inside the boat which we shaved in as fastest we can to avoid re-inflation when lying on deck. This massive sail ends lying around the entire length of the boat, life down below continues but it is restricted on the jobs we can do. Then 3-4 packers start the hot and hard job of rolling the sail into a tube, repack and move it to the sail locker to be put into the bag. A real effort! Thank you, Catherine and Helen, for dealing with the kite packing today.

Daily Stats:

Tune of the day: Personal Jesus, Johnny Cash Daily Run: 176nm Max boat speed: 15 knots life spotted: Sea birds using the boat as a fishing tool for their activities. The boat disturbs the flying fish and bird flying inches from us catches the fish.Sailing manoeuvres (sail changes, tacks and gybes): Spinnaker up and down, a gibe, a tack, head sails up and down. We have been busy!Drinks consumed: I am not drinking mate since Andrew is on lend to Zhuhai and mate tastes better when shared. Everyone else is having their usuals.Meal of the day: spicy noodles - it was great Crew of the day: everybody is doing an amazing job!

Tip of the day: If you think you cannot do something, think again!

Jeronimo