Race 7 - Day 3
Crew Diary - Whitsundays to Da Nang, Vietnam
22 January

Good afternoon from a very hot and sticky Good Ship Ichorcoal. As Gordon wrote yesterday, we have had an exciting few days and race start. Thank you Mary and Frank for waving me off from Airlie Beach and out on Upyerkilt.

All of us new leggers have been made feel very much part of the team immediately, with lots of teaching, coaching and patience which has helped us all integrate very smoothly.

The seasickness monster has been combated and both Ben and I have won the battle-so far so good. I have most definitely mastered the art of deck to bunk and bunk to deck speediness-I could almost take part in time trials if there was such a sport! With the weather being relatively calm - lightweight flying beautifully up on deck at the moment, so hopefully we wont be heading in battle again any time too soon!

A hot topic of conversation at the moment is hydration-being under the hot sun all day long and sleeping down below in the sweltering heat, too much water is never enough. We all never thought that we would be taking such interest in our pee colour-vitamin b supplements are adding an interesting twist!

At our lunchtime Happy Hour meeting today all huddled together making the most of the small area of shade(while tucking in to tasty sausage wraps- thanks Dave), we were given the good news that our positioning had improved to fifth! For the next 3000Nm or so, it's going to be trim trim trim trim all the way to a podium finish hopefully but almost definitely there will be dark and stormies awaiting our arrival in Da Nang - have to keep the tradition going!

I am going to love you all and leave you all now before I sweat myself away to oblivion-here goes another litre of water!

A very special Big Shout out to all my friends and family at home.

Love IchorCoal

By Trudy O'Donovan