We’ve had a good rest, prepped CV25 and are ready for our next three weeks for race 2.
Race 2 starts with a line gun start. We again are all jostling for position on the start line, but as our boat’s life jacket expert, I’ve been sent below to repair “BOB’s” life jacket. Bob is the name given to our Man Over Board dummy, which is rather disconcerting every time he’s thrown over the railings. In his last recovery, we burst his life jacket, so I’m down below, in the sail locker bouncing around, fixing his life jacket as the gun goes off, and we’re off to Uruguay for race 2.
I come up on deck 10 minutes after the start, and we’re in the thick of it, very exciting stuff with loads of tacking up the Cádiz estuary everything to play for as we reach the 1st Mark, and we are 1st around it. We continue to fight are way up the course with GOSH and Punta, in close proximity. We’ve got the 2nd mark on our port, and it’s going to be close, GOSH are on our inside, but won’t make it and have to tack out to make the Mark, Gavin holds his nerve and we pass the mark with about 5 feet to spare, pretty close at 12 knots in a 40 tonne sailing boat. 1st blood to team London Business School, and we head out into the Atlantic for the 3rd mark before heading south to the canaries.
One of my watch mates, Dave, has taken a turn for the worse, and we’ve sent him to bed, not sure if it’s a tummy bug, food poisoning or something else, but we’ve got our medic on board and in contact with our onshore medical backup to advise. He’s being monitored for the time being. We continue to race south in pursuit of GOSH, who’ve just managed to get in front of us by a couple of miles and Punta just behind us. Nobody has made any real strategic moves yet but decisions will need to be made soon, do we go to the east or west of the canaries or go through the middle. All have pros and cons. We Gybe just after GOSH which brought some amusement as GOSH came on the radio accusing us of having a tow-line attached to them. A few more words were exchanged as we continued to chase them down. Shortly after our chat with GOSH, we get the call from Clipper to not take any chances with Dave’s health and so it’s decided to drop Dave into the care of Las Palmas hospital to ensure he gets the help he needs to recover before, hopefully rejoining us later in the race. It’s the best thing, as once we’ve passed the Canaries it’s a long way from help. The whole crew is supportive, so we change course and head for Las Palmas. And we have a quick chat with GOSH to get the low down on their route as ours has been decided. and they’ve opted to head towards Africa down the Eastern side of the Canaries
We don’t need to alter course that much, but we set ourselves for the detour to Las Palmas. The wind has started to drop and with Las Palmas in sight and the interests of Dave, we drop our foresails, turn on our engine and head into port. Las Palmas is an extremely busy port being the main supply route for the Canaries so plenty of commercial shipping about, we slow down as we wind our way into the marina to tie up on the refuelling pontoon. We’re met with an ambulance and 5 or 6 police who didn’t appear that happy to be up and about at midnight, where particularly officious for about 20 minutes or so, until all the paperwork is sorted and Dave is helped off the boat, put onto a stretcher and Dave and his bags are gently put into the ambulance. Dave was certainly upbeat and grateful to be safe and sound. We then slip lines and head back out of the marina, through the commercial shipping before hoisting our sails and getting back into the race, knowing our teammate, Dave, was now safe and sound.
We now wait for our next update to see where we are in the race and not too much damage, we’ve dropped from 2nd to 5th with all to play. Most of the fleet have followed GOSH down the Eastern side of the Canaries. Quindau has followed our route through the islands, although our hand was slightly forced, we were only 50 miles behind and the chase was on.
My turn to be Mother. Since the watch change, I’ve been doing watch duties on my own and so was now Mother duty by myself, not a major chore as in the main, there’s not really enough room for two people in the galley. I go from my watch which started at 02.00 and go down to prepare breakfast at 05.00 for the watch change at 06.00. We tend to serve meals to the on-coming watch 1st, get them on deck, then feed the off-coming watch before they head to bed. We turn our generator on to get 240v for the toaster, a small luxury whilst we still have fresh bread. There are always the same people straggling! Not much is said, but everybody knows. If you’ve been on watch for 4 hours, you’re waiting to get down below and have a rest. Mother watch continues all day, but you get the luxury of extra sleep the following day. I’ve kept some of the bread back from breakfast as it’s starting to go stale and make some croutons with garlic, olive oil and salt for the tomato soup we’re having for lunch, some chilli flakes and garlic bread to finish and lunch is set, another round of coffees and teas for both watches and a tidy up. Great shout out to the reserve mothers, Ian H and Sarah, for helping with the washing up. The Galley gets extremely hot, sticking one’s head out of the galley helps. I put together a starter of Parma ham on toasted bread then a mixture of Quinoa and dried vegetables, a peculiar mix which wasn’t the most pleasant, but you can only cook what’s there, the best you can. Another clean up, a few more hot drinks and off to bed for a longer than average sleep, the only reward for being Mother. As I got into bed, I was planning what I would do with my downtime the following day, wash some cloths, have a full wash and get some blogging done. Lights out (face mask on), ear plugs in and off I go to the land of nod
04.00 and Olli wakes me up, all hands on deck he whispered, I muttered a few expletives as I was Mother and should be sleeping. After pulling my ear plugs out, I could hear a lot of commotion outside, I throw on my shorts, Crocs, buffalo jacket and life jacket and run up onto deck to find the Code 2 Spinnaker stuck under the port side of the boat and everybody trying to pull it back on board. A squall had blown in and the starboard watch weere trying to drop the spinnaker, but the tack line had not blown, it had dropped in the water, and we had basically sailed over the top of the spinnaker, and we didn’t know where it was tangled. Zoe, our 1st mate, had donned the dry suit and gone into the water to try and ascertain where the kite had tangled. The boat was bouncing all over the place. We couldn’t release the tack line and assumed that it was wrapped around the keel and/or the rudders. We tracked the tack line back and found somebody had put a stopper knot on the tail of the tack line, which had not caused the problem, but had made matters worse (Stopper knots should not be put on the end of any spinnaker lines, hopefully that’s a painful lesson learnt). We undid the stopper knot and gently let out the line and the spinnaker started to come free, the tack line was accidentally let go which wasn’t supposed to happen but released the spinnaker completely and we were able to pull the spinnaker on board. It was completely trashed, rips all over, some of the panels pulled out. This was a nightmare, your code 2 is your main engine for the race in medium winds, and it was obvious that we wouldn’t be able to repair it on the boat, let alone be able to repair it in Punta. Yet again, small errors on these boats can cause significant damage. It became apparent that the trip line wasn’t tied correctly, which in itself wasn’t catastrophic, but in conjunction with the stopper knot is stuff we need to learn quickly to stay in the hunt for a podium position. The team went to bed a bit deflated, but the sail repair team on board have gone into overdrive taking pictures and already onto our sail suppliers, Hyde. Hyde and our repair team have already agreed on a repair plan, which will start when we hit calmer waters in the Doldrums.
So with the best laid plans, yet again, I didn’t get my stuff done, including the hunt for the two teddies, which have been missing since Puerto Sherry, but that’s going to be a blog on its own.
We haven’t seen much wildlife in the Atlantic, apart from flying fish. I’ve read about flying fish and to witness them 1st hand is amazing, but they are the weirdest things and they do stink a bit. They literally fly over the boat, but on many occasions they don’t make it, and you can hear them flapping on the deck. We’ve now seconded a pair of tongs from the galley as the “flying fish flipper” to throw them back over the side. But it is comical watching the crew try and deal with them, a bit like a mouse in the kitchen. We sometimes get as many as 20 on the deck, and we’re starting to smell like a trawler. I had suggested we cook them, but the crew seem to prefer lentils! We get another visitor, a pair of swallows shadowing the boat, we assume a male & female pair. They circled us a few times before plucking up the courage to land on deck for a rest. The crew have offered water and food but no takers, just randomly taking off and returning, but each time becoming more daring, getting closer and closer to the entrance, looking through the port holes, next thing, one of them flies into the boat! To be honest, we aren’t that bothered and continue going about our day, sailing, eating, sleeping, repeat.
We know CV25 is fast, we’ve just got to sail her well without many mistakes, heading south to Cape Verde and should we go through the 1st gate.
We have our Sunday Sundown routine again with a can of cold pop and some canapés we’re feeling strong and ready for the fight. As we’re finishing, the bloody swift, flies out of the boat and disappears, it had obviously been sleeping for a couple of days but the stench or the snoring on board and it had had enough and off to where it was going. We go to bed on Sunday night with news that we were rapidly catching the front of the fleet.
Roll on week 4.