Race 2 - Day 12
Crew Diary - Race 2 Day 12: Punta del Este to Cape Town
16 October

From experience learnt on Leg 1, the mother system for Leg 2 on GREAT Britain was revised and refined and has now become a day to get some much needed rest and do some personal things one normally doesn't get a chance to do.

With this in mind I was really looking forward to my stint as mother with my co-mother and ex bunk buddy John Olsen, as for me this was going to be a 'good' Mother Watch rather than a 'bad' Mother Watch. I will not try to explain the intricacies of this except that a 'good' watch means a lot more sleep. My plans for a day of leisure began to unravel when our esteemed skipper, Andy, moved John from Union to Jack Watch to bolster the helming capabilities of Jack Watch and relieved him of his mother duties for today. This was necessitated by Gareth Blanks sustaining a back injury that has put him on light duties. Gareth seems to think that as safety officer he has to rather regularly test the strength of the boat's deck by hitting it hard with his back. I think the score so far is deck 3, back 0. Suffice is to say my day didn't go quite as planned but I got by with a little help from my friends Phil Blakey and the aforementioned Gareth.

We are currently zooming through the ocean sprint with a good wind direction and strength. This has been, for various reasons, a tough leg on GREAT Britain so it is good to feel we are performing near our best again. Unfortunately it is freezing cold on deck tonight so the exhilaration of good pace and direction is tempered by sitting in the freezing cold, splashed by the occasional wave, watching the boat's bow wave fly past but wishing you were wrapped up in your sleeping bag.

Talking of sleeping bags, it's been a long day and I'm off to bunk after doing the log, hoping we can sustain our speed and direction through the night.

Ray Gibson