Race 6 - Day 21
Skipper Report
12 February

Hello Team

How are we this “Welcome to the South China Sea Wednesday?” Are we chop chopping along? We entered via the Luzon Strait with a bang! That's after an afternoon of being boxed in by a number of long line fishing boats and their associated long nets, the largest of which we measured at 15 miles. I did, however learn that the boats were from Taiwan, based on their use of English spelling, thank you for the educational input Queenie. Now that we are in the South China Sea, we have just rounded VM Massey and have Dare To Lead 400m behind us. Now after over 4,000nm raced, that's a fairly tight competition.

As we surfed through the Luzon Straits at 17kts, Number 1 was running the boat, while I started my off watch, having just had a quick chat with Capt’n Waites and Master Hugues from Dare To Lead. We were both within 10nm of a mark, so even in stealth mode, we are required to transmit an AIS signal for safety reasons.

Shortly afterwards there was a bang, a lot of shouting on deck, and the boat lurched in a slightly alarming manner. I thought a halyard had snapped and the kite was in the water, but it was definitely a get out of my bunk moment. I donned my lifejacket and had a quick conversation with Lyndsay - Number 1. The port helming station cable had snapped, and we were on a port tack, so of course that was the one that was in use. Number 1 had quickly grabbed the starboard helm and had got the boat back on course. That is the beauty of having twin helms, designed for just an occasion, it gives us resilience for such an event. Although it did certain give a number of the crew a wide eyed and dry mouth moment. This morning Marcus has managed to put a fix in place that will allow us to use the helm again, should we need to between our current position and the 260nm left to run.

Having just settled down, and been supplied with a nice cuppa from Dawn, once again there was alarm and calls from the deck, more so then when the cable had gone. About 20 flying fish had arrived on mass and were frantically flapping about in the cockpit. So, dustpan out and said fish returned to the sea. We continued into the night, screaming away at 15-18kts, under the Code 2. The wind continued to build, and the fact we had just had a helming issue, there was only one option. Down with the kite and hit the white sails. So, with a mixed watch effort we ended wrestling the kite down, in 30kts of breeze and guess what. Another mass attack of flying fish, I have never seen flying fish come on board in such numbers. Luckily, we didn’t get any caught up when we packed the Code away!

When it was time for my watch to begin, I retired to the Nav Station, to drink the earlier, but now slightly cold cup of tea. Quick look at the TIMEZERO on the Nav computer. We are now in the middle of a fair amount of commercial shipping, moving in all different directions. The next 4 hours was spent talking to various tankers and cargo vessels, as we picked and negotiated our way through all the traffic, while in the distance I could hear, Guy from Dare To Lead doing likewise. Then suddenly the shipping just disappeared, great, time for a cup of hopefully hot tea, at last. The boat changed its sound. The wind dropped from the high 20’s to 8 knots in seconds. So, I was up on deck, mustering Seahawks into action, Code 1 up Yankee 1 down.

It’s been pretty busy the last 24 hours, since our last chat. Then just as we tacked over from port to starboard to beat Dare To Lead, Guy calls me up on the VHF and we have a chat, then Wendo, from Kevin aka Zhuhai joined us. It was then when I realised its 0530UTC and I haven’t started writing a blog yet. But what is there to talk about?

I think the last 24 hours pretty well sums up the Clipper Race experience, plenty of dynamic problem solving opportunities, putting seaman skills to the test, team work, inter boat competitiveness, battles within battles, but on top of that a really supportive racing community spirit, that is the Clipper Race family.

Oh, have you heard the joke about the wall? It's hilarious, I still can’t get over it.

That's all for now,

Dave & Number 1