Race 6 - Day 21
Skipper Report
12 February

Hello there it’s James,

Well it’s been a rollercoaster of a 24hrs to put it politely. Last night we were flying towards virtual mark Massey, three hours it was going to take us to get there so I went to bed. On waking it turned out that it was now going to take us a cool 28 hours. Reading some of yesterday's blogs, the Skippers were talking about having drag races and the like. We have not been, it's difficult to have a drag race on your own and a drag race would imply that you’re going fast, which we're not. Our experience is more like a heavy smoker chasing a bus, the bus (the lead boats) has stopped but Kevin has come to a wheezing, clammy halt as well.

So far today we've been going in every direction except the one we want to go in, the windseeker of optimism has been hoisted many many times and then dropped shortly after. Right now, there is breeze and we are flying the Yankee and Staysails of hope, so we'll have to see how long they stay up. Our one crumb of comfort in all this, is that the other boats are all stuck as well (except Ha Long Bay, Viet Nam who seem to skim through stuff like this at 10 knots) and in these fickle and unpredictable conditions there's always a chance we could catch up with them, but with more dark blue (no wind) showing on the forecast it could be quite a slog into Subic.

Life on board is still good though, we are all enjoying ourselves as much as you can do in a windhole, although the Oreos ran out a day ago, which is a problem. They had almost become a sort of currency on the boat, like cigarettes in prison, some people like our watch leader Robbie, who is a pack a day man, will soon be going into withdrawals. Our two mothers Magnus and Nassor managed to make a really brilliant lunch out of the now slightly limited supplies onboard, so hats off to them.

Anyhoo, have to go now as its now reached about 1000 degrees inside the nav station and I need to come up for some air.

Best wishes from Wendy, myself and from all those who ride inside Kevin!