Hello Punta supporters, we are making progress, just slower than before. It’s been great sailing, We flew the Code 3 with a little hole in the leech for an entire night. Laura’s nerves were tested but we always had a hole-spotting watch in case the hole started to rip, which it didn’t. By noon we peeled to the Code 2 with the same sheets in 25 knots and a pretty bad sea state. It went perfectly.
That afternoon, the wind started to veer, so we were too tight on the wind. As there were some rather ugly clouds on the horizon we went for the Yankee, one hour earlier than perfect, and started to head straight to the middle of the low pressure. By night, we arrived at the very stretch centre of the low and we quickly hoisted the Windseeker, which gave us the time window to change our Yankee 1 to the Yankee 2 as the wind was going to have a sharp pick-up once on the other side. The plan went really well and we managed to close the gap a lot with Qingdao. In the mid morning, while I was sleeping, the team put the Yankee 1 back and now we have been as tight as possible to the wind trying to get north and east depending on the tack.
We’ve just escaped from being the wrong side of this next high pressure that we are about to get into. This high pressure is going to slow down our progress to Oban unfortunately but will extend the enjoyment of sailing. On the bright side, Uruguay beat Brazil, Liz is again nailing the helm with her soft hands, Steve is reaching an amazing level on the helm, and Simone, Dave, Sergio, Lucia, Will and Barel are showing excellent improvement on the helm as well.
Some like helming more than others and when the conditions are good, we immediately put them on to let that learning curve keep spiking up. It is cold now, layers are ON, sleeping bags are the popular item, still not hand warmers but I’m about to and we can feel we are getting really close. Food is great, life is great. Punta is great! Have a lovely week chasing your goals. See you in two days, we will keep the pressure on doing our best and so should you, terricolas!!
Nano, Angus and the Punta Riders