Race 6 - Day 18
Skipper Report
09 February

Morning,

What a difference 12 hours makes. Last night we were flying along nicely with the Code 2 in a relatively flat sea and stars filled sky. This morning we are beating along upwind under white sails again with not the nicest sea state. I kept being woken up to the sound of cheers and laughter in the night which seemed to coincide with a wave crashing over the deck and soaking everyone. Glad to hear they’re enjoying themselves. However, this is the first bit of real weather for the new joiners and there are certainly some apprehensive and ‘rabbit in headlights’ looks. Also it looks like the green monster may have made a dreaded comeback for some.

Annoyingly the wind backed for us earlier than we would have liked last night, we did hang onto the Spinnaker for as long we could and to be honest it was probably for a bit longer than we should have done. I kept getting the ‘look’ from Dawn that I know meant “don’t even think about hurting one of my sails” but we were getting good speeds. The punishment for whoever breaks a sail on this leg sounds pretty horrific, something about being dragged behind the boat by your ankles…. Anyway, needless to say I finally caved and down came the Code 2. Once again I was with Sounders watch (led by Queenie & Tim) and they executed another slick and impressive Yankee hoist and Spinnaker drop. I am now asked to time them whenever they do a drop as they are getting quicker and quicker as a team, it’s really good to see.

Another milestone has been hit today, less than 1,000 miles to go until Subic Bay. However, before we can even think about the luxury of getting to land where air con exists and/or starting conversations of what food we’re craving / drinks we want, we still have the Dell Latitude Rugged Ocean Sprint to go, 90 miles to the line. It has been very interesting to watch what tactics the fleet ahead have taken the last few days with regard to their positioning on the start line and subsequently what angle they will run for the circa 300 miles. We are hoping that our slightly Northern route might pay off for us as we could really do with some extra points. We seem to have a habit onboard Seattle of losing points quicker than we get them.

We had an amazing day of food by Jane R and Adele yesterday, I know these next few days are going to get quite interesting with what random foods we still have left over so some imaginations are going to be needed. Kiki and Mel drew the short straw and are in the galley today, which may be one of the few days we are actually heeled over on this leg. As I write this I can smell bacon and eggs being cooked, must mean it’s a Sunday today.

So I made the mistake the other day of saying we need to do more pranks onboard and wind each other up more, well, Tim I will get you back soon and already have a few ideas in the making - thankfully I learnt a few tricks from Wayne Reed on the race last year.

I think everyone is ready to get to land now. These final few days will be an interesting set of events with dodging many fishing nets, not getting caught in the windhole that seems to be forming off the West coast of the Philippines and trying to keep the teams’ focus intact. It can be very easy to take your foot off the pedal in these final days after such a long race from Airlie Beach.

Until next time,

Lyndsay and Dave