I can now say I have sailed through a hurricane! When we set out on this leg we were told that the Southern and Pacific Oceans were where we were going to see the big challenging seas and yesterday we saw the 'worst' or the 'best' of this. The forecast was for 40 knots of wind, but by lunch time it was double that; hurricane force winds gusting to over 100 mph. We had reduced our mainsail to its smallest size and reduced our head sail to a storm jib. I was at the helm with 6 metre waves coming from the side, right over the boat, this could have easily thrown us off course and several times I had to shout for help to holdfast the wheel, It was all like a scene from a movie, very exciting and a day I will remember for the rest of my life!
Now, the weather is a lot calmer, on every watch we are working really hard to change sails or put in reefs etc. Physically and mentally we are pretty exhausted, our watches are small, sometimes there are only 4 or 5 of us on deck with a lot of jobs to be done. Additionally it has been getting very cold and it doesn't help with some of the wet clothing I have to wear as I have nothing else dry! But at least the end of every watch I can look forward to getting into my massive Gauss sleeping bag for a few hours and that keeps me warm! Morale is still high on board, we have done really well to get up to 7th place and our mindset is on shedding off more miles from the leaders. Matt continuously keeps us updated on positions so it is always in our mind where we are in relation to the rest of the fleet which helps us keep focused and have successful and safe watches!
Although this leg has been incredibly tough, I have realised the importance of 'controlling the controllable' and staying up beat, even though we are all tired, cold and wet, it's all you can do in these conditions!
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