Race 7 - Day 11
Skipper Report
10 February

It's been a day of ups and downs on the good ship HotelPlanner.com. Windseeker down, Code 1 (lightweight spinnaker) up... wait a few hours, a cloud passes, possibly some rain, a big wind shift, then reverse the process, wait a few more hours, then repeat. This has been the pattern through the night and into today. We had expected to be in the steady North Easterly trade winds by now and, like the harbour entrance single white light, it is easy to tell yourself that every gust of wind that comes from this direction is the steady wind finally arriving...

In other news it is still very hot during the middle of the day and it is a very welcome relief to have a rain shower on deck (mostly very light rain) or to bathe your feet in a bucket of sea water, or even to tip one over your head.

We worked out that we used some more fuel than planned during our motoring section in the Doldrums Corridor so we have taken actions onboard to conserve electricity and limit generator usage and use our fuel more sparingly. We have enough fuel to run all of the boat systems until we get to Sanya, but we will have to do without some of the extra comforts. One of these actions will be to turn off our freezer early next week and so we have adjusted our menu to eat lots of the frozen meat over the next few days.

The Irish Sailor of the Year awards were held in Dublin last night. It was an honour to be named as Sailor of the Month for December and to be shortlisted for the Sailor of the Year Award and I need to thank all of you kind blog readers for supporting me.

Unfortunately, I was pipped at the post for the award which went to Conor Fogerty for his result in the Single-Handed East-West Transatlantic Race in the summer, a very deserved winner. I would also like to thank Leg 1 crew member and master helm, Seamus Fenlon, for attending the awards ceremony on my behalf. Hope you had a good night, Seamus.

Thanks for reading,

Conall