Race 10 - Day 21
Crew Diary - Race 10 Day 21
18 April

For this leg Nano has made me Assistant Watch Leader. I take this as a real privilege for his trust in me and my sailing skills, and an opportunity to step up. As a novice a year ago, I can remember standing on the pontoon in Gosport for my Level 1 as Nigel Parry asks us who has never been on a boat like this before. I was the only one to put up my hand...eeek!

The Watch Leader is expected to execute the Skipper’s instructions above deck and run the crew to sail the boat on the desired course as fast as possible, manage the team rotations on activities. For a few times now that I have stepped up whilst the Watch Leader is on other duties, I really feel a sense of having the control to trim and tune the boat performance to maximise progress and also experiment a bit, which is a step up from individual tasks or operations. Basic evolutions, such as reefing and tacking, are becoming second nature now and I feel confident in calling the sequence of events to the team, allocating roles. At the end of the watch, I get a real sense of achievement both personally and as being part of the team. Hopefully the team like my input too. There is always a balance between getting the sailing done well and making sure everyone is motivated, happy and in this case, warm. Our team has resorted to howling like wolves when we hit new higher speeds. Aoooowww! Which is great fun... Either that or we're all going slowly mad in the Pacific.

So far so good. Now let's get to Seattle. Vamos Punta!