Good morning,
Our four hour windhole yesterday proved that you can be underpowered. Our blue bucking bronco of last night demonstrated that you can be overpowered... But can you ever just be powered?
Sadly, we did lose some ground yesterday in our afternoon park up. After trying everything to escape the dreaded windhole, we resorted to playing a Norwegian folk song that involved few words and a lot of yodelling. The goat herder music worked and at sunset we slipped away under our most delicate light wind sail. We are still not certain, but we had a lot of time to debate whether the yodel is a language and whether there are any countries that communicate in said language.
To tell you the truth, this has not been a good race for us so far. It has been a great race!! The crew are reborn, and things are happening quickly and smoothly. Awareness and judgement are also on the increase as everyone tries to tune the boat and pre-empt the next manoeuvre. Our voices on the other hand are not smooth and shouts to the bow seem to be getting an octave higher each day. My voice used to sound like the giant in Jack and the beanstalk, but these days if I attempt to holler it sometimes sounds like an Aled Jones impression. A Clipper 70 is a noisy place to live and work. Bring on Leg 6! As much as our routines are established and evolution slick, I know Mike is looking forward to welcoming our new joiners and telling them his repertoire of jokes.
Over the next 12 hours we are going to see a very tricky weather transition as the wind rotates from the South all the way round to the North. The forecast shows the transition being very unpredictable and localised so there will be opportunities for a reshuffle of the fleet. The transition is going to be wind-hole-tastic, but once we get going down wind, we should have a screamer. Down the Taiwan coast there is a strong north going current which will meet a strong wind blowing towards the south, so things might get bumpy. The race is on to snatch and grab the available points at the Luzon Strait Scoring Gates. Handbags at the ready. Let the agonising transition commence!
Here we go!
Ian and Mike