Let’s get it out of the way, this has been the longest sustained period of HOT that I have ever known; not surprising as I come from the UK. However, 26 days of hot is something we dream of, but then would complain. 35 C down below, and over 40C on deck defies any acclimatisation, and you just have to get on with it. This we did without anyone getting stroppy or antsy with anyone else.  It has meant being in T shirt and shorts all the time, including night time and squally showers. Indeed the showers were relished, and often accompanied by shampoo and soap. You had to read the length of the squall, though, otherwise you had to rinse off with a saltwater bucket. Wendo, Matt and Bob have all sailed here on previous races, and all believed this to be the hottest. Nuff said.

What has been fantastic in this leg is the seas we have sailed through. The Great Barrier Reef, the Coral Sea, the Solomon Sea, The western Pacific and South China Sea, crossing the Mariana Trench at almost its deepest point (10,680m). It was quite sobering to be reading about the development of the sextant at the same time, as so many people risked and lost lives to chart this area. Not just Cook, but Banks, Phipps, Bougainville, Spencer, La Perouse, and Flinders amongst others. When Cook was charting the west coast of Australia, he was concerned to be inside the Great Barrier Reef, so found a way to get outside.  Great, but on another occasion, he was becalmed just outside the reef and the swell was inextricably moving him toward the reef. He couldn’t drop an anchor as it was over 120 fathoms deep (about 250m), but he was one wave length away from hitting the reef! Imagine that on your port side you can see the sea breaking on the reef about 30 feet away. Fortunately a breath of wind arrived in time which enabled them to crawl away. He then found a gap through the reef, got inside, and landed. Consequently, the charts around here make fascinating reading.

We had a poor start, then found the first of many windholes. This meant we lost the fleet and began to experience different weather. Sometimes this brought the benefit of seeing others find windholes, but it often meant we found our own. Another issue we were dealing with was that the boat behaves differently on the different tacks. We are 1 – 2 knots slower on starboard tack compared with the port tack.  Why does his matter? Well, a 1kt difference adds up to 24 miles per day, or 168 miles in a week. (The same argument works to encourage the crew to keep steering to course and constantly trim the sails for best speed.) This is a big disadvantage as most of the race seems to be on starboard tack (wind coming from the right). For this reason, and to understand how we are performing compared with the fleet, I developed a performance spreadsheet which is updated every 6 hours.  You can watch the race viewer, but all we have is the 6-hourly schedules giving boat positions. From this, though, I can compare miles run in each 6-hour period, our position (yes, I know, usually at the back) and, more importantly, how far behind (or ahead) we are from each boat, so can see our gains even when so far behind. You can imagine how helpful this is to motivate people when we caught up from nearly 400 miles behind, to 150 miles behind.

The kind of mishaps we have to deal with are generally equipment failure. We were flying our code 2 (medium spinnaker) when the strop and safety strop holding the block at the top of the mast failed, and the kite just fell into the sea. It’s difficult to stop quickly, so the kite ended up under the boat with its sheets and halyard and nearly wrapped around the keel and rudders. In the end, though, after a couple of hours, we managed to get it back on board with the block and all lines, but had a tear from the head to the clew (that’s long). The water maker filter holder cracked, and as a result was pouring seawater into the boat, and we couldn’t make water. We had enough for the last few days in spare water jerrycans. It was a surprise to walk into the galley to find water in the bilges up to the soleboards. It’s the quickest I’ve see Dave wake up when I told him. Having established the sail locker and accommodation bilges were dry, we relaxed (after pumping out the galley bilges) and checked all through-hull fittings. We realised we must be brining water in, hence checking the water maker.  It always seems to happen at night.

We had a kite wrap that tore quite a large hole in our code 1, either during the wrap, or when dropping it. That resulted in 16hrs in the sail locker and galley sticking it together and sewing it (I’m getting to be a dab hand with the sewing machine). It was ready for the final morning’s run into Sanya.

The final mishap was on that last morning approaching Sanya.  We were really hopeful that we’d beat Nasdaq and so not come last. It’s why I held the code 1 above its recommended maximum wind speed. I’d been watching the instruments like a hawk, hovering around 14kts apparent wind (suggested upper limit is 12kts), and noticed a squall appear alongside us on the radar.  The wind started to gust to 18kts, and I debated whether it was a gusty squall or just a bit of wind and rain. As I moved to the companionway to go on deck to ask for the kite to be dropped, I got my answer as a 50kt gust hit us. Needless to say, the kite blew apart. The challenge was that the clew (the corner with sheets attached) came in onto the deck as it should as this is how we bring the spinnaker in, but the rest of the spinnaker was streaming from the masthead, almost in two pieces as they were only joined by the front edge of the spinnaker which has a strong line running through it. I called for Dave to come on deck, and he looked at it and suggested we put the kettle on to think about it. If we let the halyard out it would only fly further away from the mast, and we couldn’t slow the boat enough to bring it alongside and, anyway, the wind would still blow the kite like a flag. Turning the boat would result in the kite getting caught underneath.

The only answer (unless you’ve thought of another), which Dave devised, was to bring the halyard down to the deck. Luise went up the mast to attach a carabiner on a long line to the halyard. This we used to bring the halyard to deck, and I slowed the boat so we could bring the tattered code 1 back on board.  It was Lu’s first, and probably last mast climb, and was a great job. So now we had both the code 1 and 2 to repair. Consequently, Sanya was busy. We did repair the code 2, but the code 1 needs professional help which we’ll get in Qingdao.

We also resolved the difference in speed of tacks. Our mast was slightly bent as a result of our knockdown on the way to Airlie Beach. As we had the data captured to support our theory, we got time from the riggers Harry and Henry to spend a lot of time looking, and then retuning the mast.

It’s paying off nicely now in race 8. We’re in 4th at the moment, and have mainly been on starboard tack . . .