Hello Qingers,
So Qingers, this is, I hope, the last contact of this race until we see those of you who are coming to Qingdao.
We’ve had a very mixed race, from leading to the back of the pack, to back up and fighting for second place with UNICEF. At the minute, they have the edge on us but we’re trying hard. It’s a nice day with the sun shining, it's not cold, unlike last night. We can see UNICEF not tooooooo far away and we’ve got a bit of a gap back to the rest of the fleet. There’s still about 150 miles still to go so anything can happen.
During the night, we had large areas of lines of pots or nets, some as long as 18 miles. We tried to stay away from them and managed so far. We’ve just squeezed past another long line. Makes it all quite nervy. Not so lucky for UNICEF who managed to catch one during the night but got out of it very quickly. (Secretly, I had hoped they would be caught up for much longer. Don’t tell them!)
We’re all really looking forward to getting into Qingdao and seeing you all and enjoying the welcome that we very much know is waiting for us. It's a good incentive to try harder and get in as early as possible. We’ve got some music going on deck and spirits are high.
See you all soon
Love to those at home,
Phil, Henry and the dragon riders