Morning all,
Just a quickie today, as we are fully focused on trying to overhaul Qingdao, just a tiny two miles ahead of us, to grab the next stash of scoring gate points. The transition worked out much better than we could have possibly hoped for - clearly Neptune speaks yodelish (is that the language of yodelling?) and all our Norwegian singing of yesterday had its desired effect! - and we had a fantastic night last night. As the wind built from the north east we raised the windseeker, then replaced it with a spinnaker, and spent the hours of darkness raging southwards. Qingdao's lead ahead of us evaporated from 30 miles to just two! Sadly they just pipped us to the first scoring gate, waving their transom coquettishly at us from what seemed like inches away, but still, our first scoring gate points of the whole race. Well done the big blue boat!
With the favourable breeze still blowing at well over 20 knots, it made sense for both of us to gybe over and see if we could snatch the points at the other scoring gate too. We now continue our chase, like an over-enthusiastic labrador after a tennis ball, bounding over the waves. Ten miles to go, Qingdao is still very catchable, and the points are still available.
We have left the door open for the chasing pack to go straight from the first gate to the next mark and overtake us, but, to us conservative types, two points in the hand are worth several in the bush, and the windholes of eastern Luzon should provide lots of chances for us to either retake our position (or fall further back, of course). So, for now, it’s everyone leaning forward as we urge our creaking and groaning labrador - boats do make an extraordinary amount of noise when powered up, with ropes, blocks and winches creaking, wake crashing and people shouting to be heard - onwards.
Here we go.
Ian and Mike