Race 2 - Day 19
Crew Diary - Race 2, Day 19
04 October

As the race continues, we all get into our daily routines and manage our personal struggles of living on board a leaning boat for almost a month. Morale remains high and we all sail and live together amicably. The sense of humour remains as we all find a way. Both Josh and Hugo lead the culture and encourage us to do our best, pushing where necessary and motivating by keeping us in the hunt for the podium.

We have currently been on the same tack for about three days now, with only minor sail changes, leaving deck work at a minimum. Everybody gets a turn at the helm, as we try and keep the boat straight and fast. The wind has started picking up and turning to the east, putting the boat into a powerful orientational and boats speeds have been slowly increasing.

Last night without the use of the radar we were moving through areas of squalls without much warning, leading to precautionary sail changes and direction change to miss the worst of the clouds. Small wind direction and speed changes were noticed, but no significant squalls were encountered. Visibility was poor with winds reaching 20 knots, with corresponding boat speeds reaching 12 knots. We continue to hold down third position.

The constant struggle on board for me is getting enough sleep, I have been able to manage on about four to five hours from two different shifts a day. After the initial 24-hour sleep deviation the body just sleeps when it has to. Thinking of your bed at home doesn't help.

I managed to lose my cell phone on the boat for 24-hours last week, which brought on a boat wide search. Josh cut me a deal that if he found the phone I was not allowed to talk for 24 hours. ( A real challenge for me and I am sure a great relief for him). Of course, he didn't find the phone (someone else did) so to my great delight I have been talking to him non stop since. My favourite question for him, as soon as he wakes up and is not fully with it, is a question he has no chance of answering "how is the weather today?" Talk about being underpaid the look I get is worth it all. There have been times I have had to back off, especially after being heavily involved in getting the spinnaker nicely wrapped around both the forestays and it didn't help when all the untangling work was being undertaken, I was found asleep on the deck in the bean bag. Must go, I see Josh is waking up, I would hate to miss my chance.