Hello Team,

How are we doing this ‘back at it Monday’, how has your stopover break been, missed the excitement of Race Viewer, well you have you fix back now for a week or so? As I chat to you we are beating towards VM Massey in the company of eight other boats all within sight, but before we arrived at our current sail plan, we have had a different number of combinations in place.

Our extended stopover in Subic Bay was a welcome break after the long slog out of the Southern Hemisphere up from Airlie Beach. The Subic Bay Yacht Club is a great setting and we were offered a warm welcome from the moment we arrived at 0330 local time. The crew, once we had completed our maintenance schedule, made the most of the time and a number of trips were made around Luzon. Some crew have decided to take the opportunity to take a break from the boat and have either stayed ashore for this race or some based on the uncertainty around world travel at moment have chosen to return home early. So this race we have a crew of twelve onboard, we say goodbye to Nuno, ‘Janyo’ whose jokes were almost as bad as mine, Adele who returns for Leg 8 and Kiki is enjoying some time ashore with Phil, before she continues her quest as a circumnavigator.

The downwind start out of Subic must have looked very dramatic with the ridge lines of the mountains enclosing the bay as the backdrop. The wind shadows those peaks caused giving us all a trying time to make our way to VM Miller and then head north along the west coast. One minute we would be going 10kts then bobbing along, spinnaker not flying due to lack of wind, while a boat less than a length away would overtake you doing 10kts, only for you to return the favours 10 minutes later. It was pretty much like that till breakfast time this morning (0100UTC), since then we have had more stable and contestant winds.

Unfortunately, the transition to the more constant wind brought our first “kite mare”. Over night it had been a lot of spinnaker work in relatively light winds, making our way through the dozens of one man fishing boats that are along this coast. Their single white lights looked like lots of bobbing floating lanterns all around us. However, as the wind came more forward and increased, while in the process of dousing the kite a guest hit at the wrong moment, resulting in a tear from the head along the leech to the clew of the Code 1, that is a pretty significant bit of damage to pick up on day one. Dawn is going to try and work her magic on it, but that could come back to haunt us later on in the race.

In the next 24 hours we must declare which sprint we are going to enter, but we will be looking at the information from Simon Rowell [Clipper Race Meteorologist], in a bit more detail first.

What’s the unhappiest cheese? Blue cheese – you have missed the jokes, I know it.

That's all for now,

Dave & “Number 1”