Race 13 - Day 2
Crew Diary - Derry-Londonderry, Northern Ireland to Den Helder, Netherlands
19 July

This race is proving to be very exciting with tonight the first time we have not had any other boats visible on the AIS. It has been great to be able to monitor the rest of the fleet and avoid currents and light winds as a result.

Last night got a bit hectic as we had a little kitemare of our own. Our watch was below deck sleeping when the boat broached. I ended up laying sideways on the wall of my bunk trying to avoid being hit by flying boots and bags.

They tried numerous times to right the boat, and not unlike our Leg 1 broach, it took a fair while to get her upright again. By this stage the call for "All hands on deck" went out and we rushed to put on our boots and life jackets to go up on deck, not knowing what to expect.

First thing I saw was the entire port watch on the low side trying to grab the spinnaker which was floating behind the boat and just out of reach. I heard someone say it was ripped then someone else informed me the rest of the spinnaker was at the top of the mast.

We had done a good job of it! Ripped completely from one side to the other, the leach cord was dangling loose as was some other cord that I had not seen before (obviously internal). My heart sank, we had managed to sail 45,000nm around the world and now with roughly seven days sailing left to finish, we had destroyed our Code 2. Also as one of the sail repairers there were are few short four letter words going through my mind when I thought about what it would involve to fix it!

We managed to get it back into the boat, and eventually after a short repair job on the Code 3, that was hoisted and we saw Mission Performance sail off into the distance.

Have no fear, we did not give up, we spent the night under Code 3 and then when the wind died out early morning the other watch had tried nearly every sail in the locker to keep the boat moving.

As we neared Pentland Firth our plan to head North earlier had paid off and as we came up on deck for the morning watch we were in front of everyone except ClipperTelemed+. It sounds great, and we had done well to claw our way back from 11th but all the fleet were so close we knew not to get too far ahead of ourselves!

We started a little tacking duel with Qingdao and Derry~Londonderry~Doire as we sailed over the top of Scotland, the scenery was amazing, stunningly beautiful in fact and the sailing was exciting. Unfortunately we didn't fare too well in the tacking duel and followed Derry~Londonderry~Doire and Qingdao but not for lack of trying.

Thanks to Sean's expertise we were constantly trimming and fine tuning to get the best out of the boat. The watch went very quickly as we enjoyed the sunshine and being busy, as well as keeping an eye out on what the rest of the fleet were up to!

Tonight we sailed past an oil rig and saw a helicopter we guess was taking workers to or from the rig.

We have seen a lot of sea birds, seals and even more dolphins chatting to us.

At the risk of sounding like Max and talking about food all the time, we had another amazing breakfast this morning... cereal, fresh fruit salad and yoghurt, bacon, poached eggs and sausages and for those game enough to try it there was Guinness bread.

We are loving the close racing and looking forward to arriving in Den Helder in a few short days.