Good morning! Well what a rollercoaster the last two days have been. I do want to apologise for missing the blog the other day but both my keyboard and my mouse were not fully working, maybe something to do with being thrown across the boat during our upwind beat up the coast of Scotland! The green monster didn't just surface, it took over the boat, turning this beautiful sailing boat into a vomit comet. I think we may have spent too long on land... I awoke to find a pile of sea sick crew strewn across the galley covered in cereal! What a day. We carried on pushing the boat hard until the wind backed and made the ride smoother and now thankfully the seasickness has disappeared.
We have successfully sailed through the Pentland Firth, finding up to 6 knots pushing us along, but no wild bumpy ride as we thought might happen! Luckily we passed through at the end of the tidal gate giving us calmer less swirly conditions, but it was a really beautiful time to do it, as the sun set on the rocky cliffs of the Orkneys and we were accompanied very closely by Qingdao and Unicef.
With only a few days left of our race the crew are working as hard as they can to make Black Betty fly towards the finish, taking each mile in their stride. We must not relax as between us and London lie many oil rigs, wind turbines and shallow banks. Wish us luck with our final 500nm of racing!
Dan, Ineke and the crew of WTC Logistics ‘OUT’