Race 13. Day 12
How quickly the mind forgets unpleasant conditions! It
was only a few days ago that we were beating upwind against the headwinds of
Hurricane Chris, but it feels like a lifetime ago. We are now flying along beautifully
under the medium-weight spinnaker, doing between 10 and 11 knots over the
ground seemingly effortlessly. The trimming team are really hot and the banter
with it is wonderful. Reading some of the other skippers' daily reports, my
heart goes out to the northerly boats who are still bashing upwind in the wake
of Chris and his brother, in apparently freezing temperatures. Down here, it's
almost balmy, and yesterday the sun came out briefly, allowing us to strip down
to just one layer of clothes. We took the opportunity to dry out our boots. Otherwise
it has remained a grey world with persistent fog and drizzle. I gather we are
tracking along the edge of a low pressure system and we must be in the warm
sector.
We had another guy failed this morning, this time the
shackle snapped and apparently the spinnaker was brought down in break-neck
speed. My watch were woken to "no breakfast until the kite is packed".
The rats nest / spaghetti junction, with the halyards, that required Jonathan
and Sherlyn to go up the mast the other day, was not repeated and the kite was
up again 21 minutes after it had blown. Pretty good going I'd say.
We are blasting along and so excited as we approach the
end game. We are trying to knock as many miles as we can off Yorkshire to give us
a good position as we converge on Derry.
This morning I was also treated to my first sighting of
whales, a pod of about 10. I’m not sure what sort, but small and with rounded
heads.
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