Good morning friends, (I feel like we are friends. I don't want to rush things. Please can we be friends?)

To sum up the mood on board this morning, I take inspiration from a passing ship. It is probably a big old stinky oil tanker but she is called 'Jubilant Devotion'. The sentiment is apt for the Unicef crew who have remained ultra focused, ultra positive in spite of challenges, have worked tirelessly as a unit to keep us competitive. To me, devotion seems to be a pretty outdated virtue. At the risk of sounding like an old man, it is all too easy to give up, to get bored, to move on, or to follow the latest fashion trend. After a disappointing 11th place finish last race, the crew have dug deep and this has been one of our 'good' races. Going back to the name of the ship, our performances so far have been somewhat of a contradiction in terms and could be described as 'Beautifully Inconsistent'. As a team we are both excited and committed to improving this. In the timeless and powerful words of.... the Hokey-Cokey, we need to take the IN-OUT, IN-OUT and shake the leader board all about. Cringe worthy cliche of the day: To make that happen we must take the “in” out of inconsistent.

Spell check accidentally edited our blog a few days ago to describe our mathematicians discussing cosiness. They were not. They were talking about cosines: the difference between sailing slightly further and faster vs more direct and slower. The age old compromise of speed vs direction. Old square rigger type boats used to sail directly downwind whereas modern yachts, especially those that fly asymmetric Spinnakers tend to favour sailing much further but at supersonic speeds. Cosiness on the other hand is not something that is often discussed. Perhaps discomfort, pain, suffering, hardship, challenge... but never cosiness. I am sure the mathematicians could actually work out a cosiness percentage of a Clipper 70 if they wanted. Lack of pillow -5%, lack of cushions on deck after the 4th week -7%, lack of interior decor and soft furnishings -3%.

Tactically, our inshore break up the coast of the Philippines was pivotal in our second place finish. The temptation was to stay in the middle of the East-West fleet and remain in favourable current. Thankfully, we managed to suppress this urge and hugged the shoreline which gave us more consistent wind and more favourable wind angles. This allowed us to overhaul the early leaders and gave us a small advantage that we were able to maintain for the rest of the race.

Thank you for joining us. Thank you for supporting us.

Here we go.

Ian and Mike (co authors)