Good morning!
We spent the last 24 hours in Stealth Mode, only to be seen by GREAT Britain who are still close by and have been following us almost the entire race so far. Annoyingly we can’t pull away from them and Andy called us on the VHF yesterday afternoon: “Qingdao Qingdao Qingdao, I can see you!” A very funny man indeed.
Today was the first day we had some troubles with our spinnakers. First, we changed the Code 3 (heavyweight) for the Code 1 (lightweight) and the moment the Code 1 went up the tack blew. So, we were bareheaded until we set up the Code 2 (mediumweight), the only one available and woolled at that stage. Then about an hour ago we got hit by a squall, which resulted in the helm being completely overpowered, boom in the water, and no way out but blowing the tack line and getting the Code 2 down.
Now we are still surfing waves at 15 knots with the Staysail and Yankee. Unfortunately, this little manoeuvre cost us some ground and, as it looks, GREAT Britain might be ahead of us now by a small margin. Time to regroup and catch them again!
Fair winds and a following sea!
Chris