Crew wanted

We have now finished our third and final race across the Bass Strait and are making our way up to Brisbane. Unfortunately we are 18 hours behind the rest of the fleet as at race start we had an accident which meant two of our crew members had to be evacuated. 

Having set off in the afternoon with the rest of the fleet, we were making good progress out of Storm Bay, the boat was heeling quite a bit and at around dinner time Derek and Katherine were below deck on the high side, when Katherine slipped and Derek tried to catch her, they both fell with Derek hitting his head on a ledge and becoming unconscious and Katherine falling and fracturing a rib. Matt assessed Derek and decided to make a mayday call which Qingdao responded to, turned around and came to our aid as they had a doctor on board if he were needed. We dropped our sails and went to turn our engine on but it failed, making the situation more difficult. We hoisted the staysail, set off a red smoke flare and with in 10 minutes a helicopter arrived, however they had to turn back as an engine warning light had come on, we were all really being tested on what we had learnt over our training! So a police rescue boat had to come out and evacuate Derek and Katherine, they were then airlifted to hospital and we were towed back to Hobart by Qingdao, before they left us two voluteers joined our boat as we only had a crew of 10 and needed 12 to sail her, so now we have Jess and Brian helping us for this race. 

At lunch time the next day we set off again (along with Katherine who was now well enough to sail) and had a difficult race across the Bass Strait, with strong winds and big waves making life on board hard. Two nights ago we sailed through a squall that saw 70 knots of wind making helming very difficult with rain pelting in your face and waves coming over the side. Now we have Bwian up and a flat boat again so we can all reorganise our belongings and tidy the boat up. We have received an email from Derek who has now recovered and is joining us in Brisbane. We hope to arrive there in the next 24 hours, where we will be saying goodbye to Neil and Jo who have been with us from the start, we are still looking short on numbers for the next race so are hoping for some new crew to join our boat as sailing with so few makes life incredibly hard and every watch tiring. Leg 5 is going to throw every kind of sailing at us from wind holes and heat in Singapore, to bumpy upwind sailing and freezing conditions as we head towards Qingdao.