29/1/2024
In the belly of the yacht the heat is unbearable and on the deck the sun is blazing. In the galley, the kitchen and dining room, we have two clocks. One of them has a thermometer. When we cook the temperature passes the maximum of the thermometer: above 50 degrees Celsius! I'm so glad I brought the rechargeable fans that allow me to sleep between shifts.
Today, the morning shift actually started well. I felt refreshed and ready for the different tasks. Also, I was chosen to helm second. Before helming, we do an helm check, keeping an eye on our previous helmsman. The goal is to steer the yacht in the prescribed direction with as few deviations as possible. After about an hour and a half of trying to overtake the yacht in front of us I moved to the helmsman's position. However, not for long. Not because I was helming badly but because my right leg burnt!
Despite a ton of sunscreen, I got a nasty burn.
I spent the rest of the shift moving between the sauna in the belly of the yacht and trying to find shade on the deck. Tomorrow I'll wear long pants.
I have aloe vera cream, so hopefully the leg will heal quickly.
We are currently tenth position, but our distance from the leading yacht is only about 10 miles which is nothing when it comes to a race of about 5,000 miles. We're making good progress and keeping the distance from the leaders so the competition is still open.
31/1
We weren't quite ready when we entered a storm cloud. When the wind suddenly picked up, I felt like I was trying to move the steering wheel to get the yacht back in the direction, but the steering wasn't moving. At first I thought it was because of the winds but then Harry hinted to me that Hannah had taken control of the wheel.
The state of the sea changed at once from a very comfortable state, winds of 20 knots with waves of about half a meter to winds of over 35 knots with waves at least three meters high while we are in full sail formation with the yacht at a high tilt. The first few minutes were very scary until Hannah took over the yacht and we managed to reef the sails. At the first moment, I found myself frozen while Hannah had to raise her voice telling to me to take care of the main sail. Finally, when I got off the helm toward the main sail sheet, I did it the long way (with of course constantly clipped on). We spent the rest of the afternoon and into the late hours of the evening in rough seas until the storm disappeared.
The next day, we sailed into a similar cloud. This time, we were prepared to reef the sails. Of course we were able to circumvent this storm and there was no need to reef. Skippers accustomed to "champagne" cruises will surely ask why we didn't reef the sails in advance. Well, we are in a race and reefing will slow us down. So, we are getting ready to reef but actually do it at the very last minute.
Here's a video from another incident where we were sailing in high winds...
Personally, I had a tough day, emotionally. It started with me not finding my drinking bottle, later discovered under my mattress, continued with a shoe that disappeared even though I had attached it to rubber bands designed to do so. The shoe was found under a sail, I don't know how it got there but it happened just when we had to get to the deck quickly due to a broken halyard (another event that happened to us). It continued with Hannah asking me to get off the helm because I couldn't get control of the yacht when sailing with a spinnaker at night.
At the end of the day I found out I had lost my watch. Surprisingly, the loss of a watch of a watch worth about $1000 annoyed me less me than the other stuff. I hope I'll find it too although there is a chance it lies in the bottom of the sea.
4/2
Ofcourse, we crossed the equator while I slept. We've had a lot of events since the last update, we've gone into an area with very weak winds. Which means hard work on board. Frequent changing of sails and trimming them all the time. Surprisingly, I really enjoyed these shifts. Doing it is good for me even though it is not easy, physically.
Of course, crossing the equator is a major event on the yacht. When the small, snowflakes (sailors that haven't crossed the equator) turn into a hard-shells tortoises. For this happy occasion, Neptune himself rise from the sea and judges each and any sailor who first crossed the equator. He accuses them of all sorts of ridiculous charges. I was accused of having a strange name, of being too slow in my responses and of blocking one of the heads (that's how we call a toilet on a yacht). Ofcourse, we all were found guilty. For punishment he purred a nasty pulp on our heads and announced that we are now hard-shells.
Bob, the ship's engineer who turned 70 yesterday, played Neptune very convincingly.
Few minutes later, we washed our heads (in seawater, of course).
Here are the new hard-shell owners in a photo shoot with Neptune...
As for the competition, we are currently not checking our position. In this segment, the yacht that will find the trade winds first, will have the greatest advantage. So we're on our way to finding the trade winds.
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