Race 6 - Day 20
Skipper Report
11 February
Hello,
Well on this leg there seems to be days of no action, followed by all the action in one day. Last night we reached our mark at the top of the Philippines but not before we had to dodge some of the dreaded fishing buoys. They appear on our AIS as green triangles, I see them as little missiles of doom! If you happen to snag one of the lines that is strung between these buoys which are about 17 in number all a mile apart it can be catastrophic to your race spending hours cutting away all the line caught around your boat. This is only a small glimpse into what we will see as we head up through the east China sea.
When we reached the mark we executed a perfect gybe, not only was it perfect, it was at night and the first one of this leg so hats off to the crew on deck for nailing that one.
Now it’s a drag race down to VM Massey before the final turn south. It was all going swimmingly, speeds up into the high teens and keeping our 11 mile lead on Punta Del Este with the Code 3 flying in 25 knots of breeze, until disaster struck. A wave caught the helmsman off guard, we had a bit of a round up and PING! The Kite halyard snapped, dumping the Code 3 into the sea, damn. Credit where credit is due the on watch jumped to it, down on the starboard rail, pulling the sail out of the sea, in a matter of minutes the Code 3 was back on-board with no obvious major damage. Quickly we got the Kite down below to check for damage, repair and re-pack while the team on deck got the anti wrap net down and prepped for a Yankee hoist. Up the Yankee went then it was time to do some tidying up, coiling the sheets, sorting the halyard ready to run and then getting Jorge aloft to re-run the halyard that had just snapped. Moments later it seemed Jorge was back on deck having run the snapped halyard back to the top of the mast and we were ready to go again.
Down below the team had good news that in only an hour we’d have the Kite back on deck ready to go, Bingo! Although not an ideal activity to be doing, it’s great to see the crew all working together and seeing the RTW’ers leading their teams to solve the issues that arise.
Hopefully it’s less eventful as we head into this patch of lighter winds.
Until tomorrow,
Seumas