Race 7 - Day 8
Skipper Report
02 March

Hello,

On board Visit Sanya, China it has been a fast night, with the Code 3 flying we’ve been busting out average speeds of 12+ knots and surf up into the 19 knot range, it has been fantastic. Our efforts have been rewarded as well with extending our lead over the fleet behind us and closing the gap on the two front runners.

We’ve just passed through the eastern gate behind Unicef and Qingdao, picking up the third and final point in the gate, now we head west, hoping to pick up more points in the western gate as well.

Just as we were preparing to gybe, I came on deck a little blurry-eyed after being woken from my slumber to see a pilot whale hurl itself from the sea maybe six feet in the air and belly flop back down to ocean level again only 10 metres from the boat. If you thought getting crew to concentrate on a gybe after that has just happened then the pod of about 25 very excited dolphins appearing on the other side of the boat definitely did not help. If we could speak dolphin or whale, I imagine they would be urging us forward shouting ‘Go Sanya! Go Sanya!’ well at least that's my interpretation.

With another perfect gybe in the bag, we head west for a few hours looking forward to the building breeze and the chance to break our top speed this race.

The next hope is that as we head into the trail of the blue comet of Luzon that it isn’t as light on the wind front as it was on the way down or the way up because watching the rest of the fleet scream up behind you is not a pretty sight, however, being in the rest of the fleet and racing up behind the front runners feels good, so I guess it depends who’s team you are on. Only a couple of days now, I hope.

Until tomorrow,

Seumas