Wham, bang, crash, boom were the descriptive sounds of this race along with pounding rain, amazing lightening and thunder and then the peace and quiet of just the gentle waves as the boat drifted through the water.  You imagine it and it happened on this voyage.

We lost Immre to shoulder injury, Lynn to knee injury and Caz to internal issues.  Kat was moved over from Mission Performance and Paul was moved from Derry Londonderry to fill out the crew.  We also left Justin (majorly sick) and Ryan in DaNang to meet back up with us in Qingdao.  So our crew was 6 guys and 6 girls split evenly between the 2 watches.  Now imagine with one out for Mother duty (in charge of food for the day) leaving 5 on deck during the watch, no one can be sick, get hurt or any other excuse not to be on deck.  Even my 3 battles with the Green Monster did not get me any time off.  Most of the crew was equipped with a ziplock bag and on task the first couple of days.

It started with most boats going to reef 1 and Yankee2 at the start.  We got off the line all right then watched as all but two boats just sailed right by us.  What was with that?

The crazy weather was just getting started as the winds started dying a little later and we played leapfrog with ICharcoal for most of the night.  However, our watch went off and when we came back up the next morning somehow we were in first???  Exciting and then the winds built and soon we had the mainsail slider track pull off the mast so now we are without a main up and somehow managed to stay in 1st place sailing with just a Yankee and Staysail flying.  Really heavy winds the first 4 to 5 days and then we take one of our “let’s check out the left side of the course and not cover the boats behind” tactics.  Oh well.

Calmer weather made it possible to jury rig the main so that we could get it up and down though now reefing took almost an hour.   To reef is to take some sail area down and thus make the boat more manageable to sail in heavy weather conditions.

And then the winds came back with a vengeance.  We tend to use the lazy Yankee sheet as a backup for the active sheet by running it through the car then to a snatch block and onto another winch.  When we need to tack someone has to take the lazy sheet off on the low side of the boat and rerun it to the front of the boat and then around to the other side.  In the wee hours of the morning (2amish), I got the call to rerun the sheet and as I was crawling with it to pass off to Mark at the shrouds, I was hit by a powerful wave and slammed into a stanchion.  The good thing was I was clipped on with my tether, holding onto the active Yankee sheet as well as the lazy sheet.  So, I only went halfway overboard.  Well, another wave took a try at me and as it hit, Nick grabbed the back of my lifejacket and pulled me back.

Oh and my life jacket came to life on one of the hits and I am sad I don’t have a picture of how I look when the thing is blown up.  Had to get someone to help me find the deflator so I could deflate and get out of it.

My find Judith went over the next day rerunning the sheet from the high side when she got hit by a wave.  Good to know that the tethers work to keep you attached to the boat.

March 6th we were once again with no wind!  Everyone in Shorts and t-shirts.  Sunny skies and no clouds with the windseeker up all day.

The main is working so how about the inner forestay having the pin shear off at the deck?

Before this race was over we had broken reef 2 line,  reef 3 line, one staysail sheet, one yankee sheet, the tack line, the generator and the water maker.  And as discussed earlier, the mainsail and the inner forestay.

And then guess what!  WIND!!

What all did we see on this race?  Next to no birds, one set of dolphins, humongous US Carrier that is part of the Project Taiwan, Okinawa, a BIG fish that jumped out of the water and both Elaine and I jumped and screamed when it did, another flying fish wanting to go with us, and the age old question, “don’t you think we should cover?”

That’s it for now!  Have a great day!!