Well as you will all know by now, boat v whale is not good for poor boaty. After spending some time in 'Moby Dick's' in Punta del Este, we then managed to find one in the expanse of the South Atlantic who decided to scratch his head on our starboard rudder, sadly causing us to return to port in Uruguay for repairs. There is a whale out there with a bigger hangover than the combined Clipper Race crews after free drinks in 'Moby Dick's'
Despite the great disappointment, I can take great pride in the way the team dealt with this setback and their attitude since. David Wilson (Engineer extraordinaire) was great and was straight into the lazarette to assess the extent of the damage before jury rigging the poorly rudder stock to prevent further damage. Trevor Taylor and Ben Acland took a good soaking on the foredeck as we downed the Yankee 2, unbent it along with the Staysail, and bent on the Storm Jib to deal with the 45 knots we were experiencing at the time. Lots of great ideas and suggestions came flooding in from the team as clearly the content of their ISAF training came flooding back to them. (Put the boat on the opposite tack! Can we move weight around?) All in all, a great response to an awkward situation, and some great teamwork to get it all under control and get the wee boaty pointing back to Uruguay for repairs.
Then to cheer everyone up, our Italian Matteo Grassi decided to get in the galley and rustle up a spicy sausage and tomato pasta dish which was incredibly tasty and very welcome. Sadly Matteo is not yet inducted into the way of 'duff', but I'm sure after his crash training course he will treat us to some great Italian 'duff'.
Please don't be concerned about Gertrude. After a bit of a fright, she proved to be a good swimmer and was instrumental in helping Dave Wilson deal with the issue in the laz.
We are now 65 nautical miles from Piriapolis (near Punta del Este), Uruguay, where we are due to be lifted later this afternoon and repaired. We then hope to be underway as soon as we can, and then avoid whales on the passage to Cape Town.
All are well on board, no injuries, and all are in good spirits despite the obvious disappointment of being out of the running in this leg so soon. However, an unexpected steak with chips beckons with maybe a cold beer to wash it down before getting back to sea.