Morning All! And we are off again!
It’s been an exciting first day for racing and the entire fleet has remained close together and within sight of one another for the first 20 hours of racing.
We started the race with a Le Mans start, now these can be tricky to line everyone up well in daylight, but after a unforseen postponement we ended up starting in the darkness.
So off we went for the start of Race 9. Here on Qingdao we got off to a good start, popping out as one of the front runners after the start. Getting out the front of the fleet after the start always gives you more options and more opportunities to position yourself where you think will be most beneficial.
Since the start, the fleet has been drag racing relatively due west to the end of Dell Latitude Rugged Ocean Sprint 1, which there are eight boats competing in, including ourselves.
As the wind gradually went right overnight and into this morning, and becoming more and more aft with this persistent shift, it became important to be one of the first boats to get a Spinnaker up.
Fortunately we managed this and remain in the top few boats of the fleet, sitting very close to both Visit Sanya, China and Punta del Este with WTC Logistics hot on our heels too!
Looking forward to what the rest of the sprint brings but for now we're trying to keep all the focus on getting this boat going as fast as possible.
We'll update you on how it all goes tomorrow
Rhiannon :)