Blue skies! Bikinis and swim trunks on and deck showers all round. Jokes, not yet. Its 11 degrees air temperature though which is dreamy, and I have progressed from five/six layers to just three! Some very welcomed sunshine has hit the deck today. It feels as though every blog this race has been about the weather, which I imagine is getting a little repetitive for the avid blog reader, so I’ll refrain for the remainder of this one.
The reason I am in the nav is that we finished our Ocean Sprint and I was sending our declaration in. This is always exciting as it means we are roughly two thirds into the race. This sprint has been an interesting one, as several of the lead boats opted for a direct east route to minimise the miles, leaving us now very faraway from our old friends Qingdao. We opted for an angle of 60 degrees across the sprint, which meant more miles in the Ocean Sprint but in the direction of Fremantle. However, the high pressure sitting over Australia has created a rather large wind hole between our current position and Fremantle, in tune with every Clipper Race finish we have had thus far. The lucky few will make it through, while the others may park up, possibly enabling the pack currently 80 miles behind to sail into us. Could make for some interesting tactics in these next 1100 miles, particularly as the fleet is still impressively close. One thing we have loved about this leg has been the competitiveness, teams have been continuously jostling positions, with everything still to play for. At this point, people's minds are turning to fun in Freo, but as our Skipper Dan says; “It’s not over until we are on the dock, and then its land that’s scary…”
Love to all our supporters,
Laz, Dan and UNICEF team