Hello Team,
Shhh, we are over here, no to your left, just a little further up than where you are currently looking, no, a bit further up, yes that’s it, you got us now. Actually for many of you by the time you read this, we’ll be back on Race Viewer and you’ll be able to follow the little purple boat again – I didn’t realise we were that colour until someone mentioned it this week.
How are you this ‘Chill out Thursday’, weekend is in sight, have you smashed those personal tasks and objectives you set yourself for the week? Having a little pre-Friday warm up evening out tonight? This end we are just having a little chill out between weather systems. One came over us on Tuesday and we are expecting some stronger winds to return over the weekend.
Tuesday was a full on day, we had a bit of a kite-mare just before breakfast with the Code 3 spinnaker, which was finally resolved on Wednesday morning, with #1 going up the mast to recover a spinnaker halyard which had had its shackle snap. But normal service has resumed now, thankfully, including a great bit of splicing under time pressure from Lizzy, so we could get the Code 2 up.
On Tuesday also, when we had around 32-35kts of wind on the beam, we went to white sails, going for a conservative sail plan. We opted for a full main, Yankee 1 and Staysail, and with the surf from the waves we hit some great speeds. The result, 303nm in a 24 hour run, from 1200LT Tuesday to 1200LT Wednesday, of which 299 nm (98%) was distance made good, which is a pretty impressive statistic.
Now, as anyone who has done any sailing navigation will know, similar to walking across mountains, your route will have a number of waypoints in it. These, clearly, get entered into the GPS so the helms get a bearing and distance to the “mark”. When #1 and myself enter the waypoints into our Garmin chart-plotter, it automatically assigns it a number or allows you to give it a name. Hannah and I have gone for the naming option and I wonder what other Skippers and Training Mates will make of our waypoint names, when CV22 joins the training fleet during refit. It has become a bit of a thing between Hannah and myself in naming them. Under ‘User Data – Waypoints’ they will find ‘Freedom’, ‘Ease Sheets’, ‘Friends’, ‘Up North’, ‘Big Nige’ and ‘Game On’. Yesterday we passed ‘Arf Way’ (one of #1’s) and we are now heading towards one inputted by myself, ‘2bSure’. It's little things that keep us amused in the Nav Station on Seattle and the hours just fly by.
Not sure there is a lot more to say really, that I haven’t updated you on over the last few days. We are still seeing lots of wildlife, but the sight of the mega pod of dolphins the other day still fills me with awe when we talk about it or when I think back, definitely a highlight since leaving Subic Bay. We are currently working on UTC+2 as our deck time, so nearly in line with the UK. As someone said a few moments ago: “We are getting close to Britain, there’s loads more rain about.”
Will you be indulging in ‘National Strawberry Sundae Day’? Which triggers a thought, potentially this coming Sunday will be our last full Sunday at sea for this edition of the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race 2019-20. (Yes, you are correct, I do love a leisurely Sunday, with a good walk and a traditional roast, properly because they happen so rarely, so high on my ‘To do list’ when I get back to the UK , if I get the time, that is.)
Standing by this channel,
David & #1