BACK

Bashing upwind in 25 knots

December 18 2008

Not the easiest of conditions to type, bashing upwind in 25 knots but no complaints, any wind in this part of the world is a blessing! I’ve just come off watch after one of the more arduous nights this leg. We seem to have spent the whole night in a shipping lane whilst being constantly attacked by vicious squalls.

In the middle of the night we were caught out in pitch black with only one reef when the breeze gusted to 37 knots and torrential rain reduced visibility to about 1 metre. It was pure ‘seat of the pants’ sailing, with no instruments visible I just tried to find what was a pretty much non-existent groove and keep the rig on top of the yacht. Thankfully, the boys trimming did a wonderful job and we got through with everyone and everything intact.

After what seems like days, we have finally tacked onto the lay line for the scoring gate…..500 miles away, and are settling down for a long hard 2 day slog east. The rest of the fleet is south of us and we have a few hours to make up but the latest routing shows us arriving just 7 hours after the leading pack and ahead of Delta Lloyd. With the run into the finish looking so tricky, we should still have it all to play for.

Life onboard is still pleasant despite the bumpy conditions, however Wouter’s own special wind is causing some discomfort to those sleeping near the nav station and Scotty is keeping Neptune happy by adding his sunglasses, sun hat and shorts to the food bowl and loo roll he lost earlier.

Finally, just a brief moment to express our heartfelt sorrow for Mike Golding and the ECOVER sailing team, of which I was part of before signing up with Team Russia. Mike was leading the Vendee Globe, solo non-stop around the world, when a few days ago he was dismasted in gale force conditions 1000 miles south west of Australia. Losing all of the rig and most of his sails he is now making v slow progress towards the Australian coast. Despite obvious limitations I’ve been following Mike every step of the way and I can say for sure that all of Team Russia have been behind him and so when we got the news onboard, we were all devastated for him and of course the rest of the team. We were all thoroughly impressed by his outstanding effort and wish him the best of luck for a safe and speedy return to land. Best of luck to the rest of the guys still out there racing!!

That’s all for now

Cheers, Nick