Race 1 - Day 31
Crew Diary - Race 1 Day 31: Liverpool to Punta del Este
20 September

Nathan Harrow
Nathan Harrow
Team Unicef
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Hey,

Well, it's Tuesday and today's journal comes to you from a large wind hole off the east coast of Uruguay.

Wind speeds of anywhere between 0 and 8 knots has been pretty much the norm for the last 28 hours or so. Frustration is slowly sending the crew bonkers and to add to the amusement, the 'n' key is intermittent on the keyboard, so typing this is doubly hard!

The average watch goes something like this; come up on deck, spinnaker is flopping around uselessly, let's change to the windseeker, so spinnaker down, windseeker up. Wind fills in, wrong direction, windseeker down, yankee 1 and staysail up, no not enough wind, drop staysail. Boat flops around for ten minutes, wind changes, code 1 spinnaker up (after being wooled by the poor people down below), 15 minutes of making 2 knots in the right direction, wind changes, drop code 1 spinnaker, raise windseeker, oh look it's time to go off watch and wool the kite!

For variation, every once in a while it rains!

We have seen a pod of whales (about 20) off our starboard bow which was utterly fabulous. We could see them blowing off, about 4 at a time, then a couple of them dived and showed us their tails. I will never tire of the sight of these amazing creatures.

Anyway, I'm in the Nav station and can feel the boat pick up, the wind just hit 13 knots and we're sailing along at almost 9 knots now with our big Code 1 Spinnaker up. Let's hope we're finally out of this wind hole and on our way again. All we talk about is steak, red wine, fresh fruit and beer! Oh and showers as well, we're pretty stinky these days!

We're 545nm away from Punta del Este and mainly been listening to the Beach Boys - Rhonda.

Love from 29 degrees South ad I hope I did't miss too may 'n's :-)

Nate