After reading about all the kite mares across the fleet the Big Blue Clipper Boat UNICEF was feeling left out, so gave us one of our own to deal with. After a lovely day flying our Code 2, enjoying the flatter seas and patches of blue sky. Night fell and with it, the clouds came to cover all the stars and create a black canvas. This made helming more of a challenge as we now had to try and find some kind of difference in the black sky to use as a reference so we could work out which way we the bow of the boat was moving. Most of the time the swell was gentle and allowed us to glide along, however, the occasional big set would come in from a different angle rocking the boat from side to side and trying to spin us on the spot. The crew stepped up and were doing an amazing job of keeping us going fast in a mostly straight line. A couple of collapses every so often is the price we had to pay for flying the Spinnaker on a featureless night with an unpredictable swell. Then our lovely Code 2 decided it had had enough of our games and wanted to do an hourglass impression (the top half of the sail rotates around the wrong way and then catches the wind spinning round and round and round tightly rapping the centre into a thin tube) at this point the only way to get the spinnaker flying again is to drop it and unravel the twists so it can be rehoisted. As always, these things happened in the dead of night leading to either myself or Laura getting woken up with a shout for help. We then pop up onto to deck and spend a short time admiring the handy work of the boat before getting down to business and getting involved in the recovery operation.
Dan, Laura, and UNICEF team