Race 6 - Day 2
Crew Diary - Hobart to Whitsundays, Australia
04 January

Apologies to family friends and supporters for the delay with this blog, we are having issues with the coms and media computer here on PSP Logistics and Skipper Max (after a little arm twisting) has agreed to let me use his email to send the blogs!

Race 6: Hobart to Airlie Beach. After a very short but social stopover in Hobart, we had an early start on Saturday 2 January meeting at the boat at 7:30am.

We had some sad goodbyes as one of our round the worlder watch Leaders, integral part of the team and generally great guy, Sean Wilson was leaving us, as well as two crew who joined us for Legs 1 and 4 Eileen Harrison and Brett Arthur.

On a personal note, Henrik said goodbye to his Mum, Dad and Brother who travelled from Germany to spend time with him in Sydney and Hobart. He will see them again in London and New York respectively. I was also lucky enough to have my boyfriend Greg visit me in Sydney and Hobart, saying goodbye is particularly hard when you know you won't see someone again for over three months. So with tear in our eyes we slipped lines and waved goodbye. As we motored past the jetty, Richie led a well deserved 'three cheers' for Sean.

PSP Logistics led the parade of sails and then prepared for race start. We used the same people for positions as we had for the Sydney to Hobart which worked really well and we were away to a good start. It was a tacking dual all the way up the Derwent and this made for an exciting and interesting start. We could immediately tell as crossed other boats either in front or behind whether we had gained or lost ground on them and this definitely kept us maintaining the intensity.

We were mid pack by the time we left the bay and it was time for Port watch to head down off watch to catch up with some shut eye before a double night shift. A few hours later I woke up and could see the Organ Pipes from out of my 'bedroom' window. We were so close to shore we could see them very clearly and it was such an amazing sight I even got out of bed to take a photo.

Our first night shift saw us sailing with our heavyweight but with winds picking up by the end of the shift we really needed to get it down.

Being short handed we waited for Starboard watch to come up on deck and together we got the spinnaker down below, wooled and packed away, hoisted the staysail, put a reef in the main, hanked on Yankee 3, unhanked, flaked, bagged and packed away Yankee 1, then hoisted Yankee 3. It was a busy 2 hour period and we were well ready for bed by 1am when we had finished all the evolutions, knowing we would be woken up again at 2:30am for our next watch. It was a real struggle to get up for the 3-7am watch so to try and wake up I got straight on the helm. It was a very active helm which made it quite challenging but I found my groove and enjoyed the time just concentrating on keeping a straight course. It was encouraging we were averaging 10-12 knots and keeping up with the fleet, some of whom we could see their tri-colour in the distance.

We were well l ready for bed by the end of the watch, but as the saying goes - no rest for the wicked, as was rostered on to do Mother Watch with Henrik. We started off with fruit salad, cereal and homemade yoghurt, followed by Panettoni French toast with bacon. It was well received and both watches left satisfied.

A quick clean up and a few hours sleep, then up to help with lunch, which was 'build your own burgers'. We prepared all the components and crew could choose fillings they wanted included in their burger. We had a few laughs because as it turns out some people are very particular about the order of such fillings!

Then it was back on deck, still on the same tack, still with the same sails up so to a lot to do except jump in on the helm rotation. Helm was very similar to the previous watch and I enjoyed it a lot. By this stage Henrik had succumbed to seasickness (very common when you are down below in the heat) so Dawn and I went down and made beef stew, roasted sweet potato and rice for dinner, then brownies, banana and custard for dessert.

In a state of extreme heely-overy-ness (technical sailing term) it was very difficult to keep balance let alone prepare dinner so by the end if it we were well worn out and Sue very kindly stepped in for the clean up so we could go to bed at the same time as the rest of our watch.

While we were preparing dinner, our watch needed to put in a second reef and as Dawn and I generally run the pit during evolutions we offered our assistance. Max declined our offer and after a fair amount of shouting instructions, the boys did a stellar job of putting a reef in without us.

Day three has almost seen a repeat of day two, same weather conditions, same tack, same sails but with the addition of two new menu items... tacos and butter chicken.

Even though the conditions are making life tough on board it is encouraging for us to still be with the fleet, something we are not used to but making the most of!

A big shout out goes to one of our biggest supporters, and daughter of round the worlder Alan, Gillian who celebrated her birthday on the 3rd of January.

Happy Birthday Gillian from Alan and all the crew on PSP Logistics - we hope it was a good one!