Race 13 - Day 12
Crew Diary - Crew Diary: ​Race 13, Day 12
11 July

Let it snow, let it snow, the cold never bothered us anyway! A few days ago, the weather shifted dramatically, dropping by 15+ deg c and has stayed this way. Crocs, shortsand T-shirts have been replaced by base layers, mid-layers, foulies and sailing boots. Below deck, people have ferreted out their sleeping bags which are now a necessity. Personally, it is the weather I’d been expecting and hence prepared for, including my toasty alpaca socks (which have worked a treat)!

Teamwork – the boat relies and requires this essential ingredient. While my watch and I are sleeping, the other watches must continue to carry out support activities and sailing the boat. It is good to know that we continue to make progress even when we are sleeping and eagerly find out what has transpired following our long and short sleeps.

Mindset of a racing boat: It is about 7.10pm on boat time (which is really 11pm local time at this particular location we find ourselves within the Atlantic Ocean), so it is dark and cold and windy. We are commencing for a peel, and Oli heads up the mast to collect the second spinnaker halyard, and at the top notices that one of the blocks has some damage to the cage and the sheet was not sitting in it correctly. Oli is again sweated up the mast using our two Yankee halyards, with some basic tools to detach the damaged block. It is worth noting that the boat continues to sail at full speed, so it is heeled over at about 20%, so doing the math, with a ~28 metre long mast, that means Oli, at the top of the mast is directly over the Atlantic, not the boat.

The shift due to come on board at 8pm is brought on early, to support activities on deck. Olaf, our ‘master of all things engineering’ along with others then commences repairing and rebuilding the spinnaker block from other previously damaged blocks and spare parts. It is now 8.50pm and the spinnaker block has been repaired, resprayed and is ready to be taken back up the mast and re-attached, which Paddy, another of the RTW’s takes on.

All of this, and plenty of other supporting tasks, were done whilst the boat continued to be sailed at its optimum speed. The race doesn’t stop because we find an issue, it is repaired before it can become an issue for racing speed, safety or more serious damage to sails, rig or sheets.

As you may have noticed on the race viewer, and no doubt many other skipper and crew blogs, pretty much the whole fleet has been experiencing frustrating and fickle light winds since reaching the scoring gate. I can tell you it is mighty frustrating to bob around amid the Atlantic trying to find an angle which can keep carrying us towards Oban. However, it seems that all routes, including those that stayed south, those that struck far north and like us, those that went more direct (like us) have faced the same fickle winds. Nonetheless, the morale on Ha Long Bay Viet Nam remains high, and we do hope to reach Oban within the arrival window, with nature’s blessing of course.