Goodbye Qingdao

One week into our big Pacific crossing and already it has been, full on, tough and tiring! The send off from Qingdao was amazing with hundreds of people waving goodbye to us. After a successful start we were sitting in the lead group, however a few hours later the race was suspended due to the poor visibility and with so many fishing vessels about this was a good call.

For the next day we motored and the following morning all the fleet met to do a 'Le Mans' start, we all started with our Yankee 1 (biggest head sail) and full main and then after keeping the same course and sail plan for 10 minutes we could change to which ever sails we wanted. The wind was behind us, perfect territory for a kite hoist! The first boat to successfully hoist their kite was going to get the head start. Thankfully Bruce went up with no disasters but for some of the other boats we saw some spectacular kite wraps!

Over the next few hours we were doing well averaging around 13 knots but in the afternoon Matt saw a huge, thick mooring line caught around our keel (the weight at the bottom of the boat to help for ballast) trailing 30m behind the boat with a massive knot at the end (hopefully it would slip off or someone would have to go swimming)! After doing some circuits at 2 knots for half an hour the knot end pulled the line through and we were free to get back up to speed, however at this point the fleet had already got some miles on us. Later on conditions were variable; sometimes we were making good speeds and then the wind would die off and we would be bobbing along slowly with another Clipper Yacht 4 miles away getting considerably better speeds. This all meant constant sail changes day and night, meaning already all of us were tired! It was like this until the day before yesterday when the wind shifted behind and we decided to hoist Bwian, but after doing so well with kites over Leg 5, Bwian ended up in the water; An 'all hands on deck' call was made and after successfully retrieving him it was a relief to see that Bwian had again made it out alive with no major damage! Steadily the wind built over the afternoon, and having our Yankee 1 up was making it difficult for the helm. So we decided that we should change to the 2. It was getting rough and I went up onto the foredeck  as number 1. My job was to stand outside on the bowsprit (a bar that sticks out the front) and un-hank the sail as it came down, while we were all trying the wrestle the sail down apparently we did 25 knots, which was very exciting to experience while standing on the very front part of the boat! Since then the wind has built and sea state has become rougher, helming has been tough but my top speed so far has been 22.5 knots, last night I spent 3 hours on the helm, even though it was tiring, helming in these conditions are what  I enjoy the most and I think the Pacific will have a few occasions like this!

Now, a message for my brother Scott..... HAPPY BIRTHDAY!..... 12 today!