Another day on the big red bus, this time with drama over the last 24 hours. I have largely missed it, as I was asked to swap on to mother watch last night, to cover for Neil, who injured his hand early on in the race. He had a nasty cut over the knuckle and is rather limited by being one handed at the moment.
While I was tucked up in bed at 11pm we got a nasty wrap in Josie, the light weight spinnaker. It took until 8am this morning to get her down, having sent two people up the rig, and a lot of the crew being up all night. I fear it will have set us back in the race standings from being very well placed for a point scoring position at the gate, but Josie is now repaired by our expert sail repairer Mererid.
As I write, lunch is postponed so that we can re-fly her at watch change. A lot of people are tired but recovering from the stress and life is returning normal at least below deck. I have the chocolate cake made for 5pm tea, so I am hoping to have a shower, read a bit and catch up on some sleep this afternoon.
Previously I had had a good day doing a mixture of jobs. Ben, our skipper, gave us a master class in kite trimming in the afternoon. He then went up the rig and Bilbo, one our Ozzy crew went up to the end of the spinnaker pole to fit a temporary guy (control rope for the windward side of the sail), so that the main guy could be brought in to check for sign of chafe. Chafe is the enemy on a long distance ocean racing yacht. The guy was fine and was returned to action in the one operation.
The weather continues to get warmer and I did get into my shorts yesterday. It is bliss not having to spend 10-15 minutes getting dressed or undressed at the beginning and end of each watch.
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