30° North. Somewhere off the coast of
southern USA.
The last two days have been great. The day before last I
was on mother watch with Sarah and had a great day. We were able to indulge in lots
of gossip, the cooking was nothing to tax the weary brain and we caught up on
chores that the boat needed, and oh, of course, the bliss of having a shower.
Yesterday and this morning the whole crew have worked
really hard. As one, we were very keen to go all out for the ocean sprint win,
and have just heard we have achieved that. For the first time for days we had
good winds so the sailing was great fun. Keeping going as fast as possible
meant hard work by the helms and meticulous trimming. We also did several
evolutions, when kites were changed, altered to white sails, and a gybe. It all
ate into the off watch time of each watch, but everyone has been happy to do
it.
This is added with the goal of moving up the fleet and
the latest news is that we are now 7th and only 3 miles behind Qingdao. This
has come down from the 50 miles that they were ahead of us two days ago.
Spirits are high.
During this morning’s watch, however we did intend to
launch the medium weight kit, “Mabel”, but out of Mabel's bag came “Sticky Vicky”,
the heavy weight. Mistakes happen, especially when you have to pack a kite in
the low light levels below at night. Another mistake was not spotting which
kite was in the bag before we launched it. Fortunately it happened after we had
finished the ocean sprint and when weather conditions were fairly benign. There
had been a bit of debate as to which of these to fly anyway so it hasn't been
the end of the word, just a couple of hours when weren't going as fast as we
might. The boat operates a no blame culture. I'm sure it will just bring to
everyone’s attention that checking and double checking everything is always
necessary.
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