The flying squid.

The heat has become intolerable. The past two days have seen us strip down to our shorts and T-shirts and with this the wind has gradually decreased, we are still moving, but very slowly! 

This week has seen some of the best sailing we have had so far in this entire race. We have had either 'Bruce' (lightweight kite) or 'Bwian' (mediumweight kite) flying and making great progress down the coast of Mexico, the skies have been clear (no squalls yet!), the wind consistent and from behind to keep up a good pace and we are sitting in a good, mid-fleet position with first place being only 35miles closer to the finish. After a week of sailing we are still seeing other Clipper vessels on the horizon, we have seen Old Pulteney and Jamaica yesterday and One DLL the other day, this gives us something to aim for and keeps us focused on making sure we keep the kite filled and we steer a straight course. The new crew members have been fitting in really well and are expert kite hoisters, on my watch we have Kate as watch leader, me as assistant, then we have Ant (legs 4, 5 and 7), Farmer (legs 1-4, 7 and 8), Richard (legs 6, 7 and 8), Pauline, Nikita (leg 7) and Lloyd (legs 7 and 8) on Derek's watch, Orla (legs 6, 7 and 8) as assistant, Ben (rtw), Stephen (legs 4-8), Sigi, Jax, Jon and Dick (all leg 7), it seems they are all really enjoying the sailing, but for the newbies they are having to adapt to the heat! 

The wildlife has been amazing, we have seen lots of dolphins swimming next to the boat and a few days ago I saw some whales around 200m away. Additionally we have had the unwelcome visits of flying squid that attack at night time, I being one of the victims was hit while I was helming at night, at first I thought Matt had thrown something at me while he had walked past, I later realised that the object I had been standing on was the squid that hit me, so now we have a permanent squid scooper (a spatula) at the back of the boat to get rid of any unwanted squid! Although there have been suggestions to make some calamari!

Come back Claire.

It was a spectacular sight leaving San Francisco underneath The Golden Gate Bridge, with helicopters and spectator boats surrounding us we tacked all the way out of the Bay, then turned left, hoisted our kite and it has been none stop kite flying ever since. Gradually the weather has been warming up, a huge contrast to the past few races, shorts and t-shirts are beginning to make appearances again. All this kite flying means we have been making great speeds towards Panama, but I suspect that in a few days time we will be slowing down as we head into those familiar grounds of the Doldrums.

Sadly, my fellow Round the World crew member, Claire, has been unable to take part in this race from San Francisco to Panama due to a hip injury. This means we have needed a new 'mast monkey' and somehow I was nominated for the post by Matt and the other day I found myself for over an hour clinging on for dear life at the very top of the mast in a rolling sea state trying to swap the Spinnaker halyards (the line that attaches the head of the kite to the mast) as we had chafed through our working one, It was incredibly hard, although Claire has done this many times, in far rougher sea states and stronger winds! I guess this will not be the last time I have to go up there before the end of this race but I feel a bit more confident in going up next time as I know where the best gripping on points are, of which there are few!

For now, we have been spending some of our time teaching the new joining crew how the boat runs smoothly, we have an enlarged crew totaling 16 and I had forgotten what it was like to have this amount of people on board, as it means that we don't have to wake up the other watch members for sail changes and generally life has been a bit easier! I can't imagine what it will be like on leg 8 when we will have even more people on board!

'Have a Nice Day'

We have made it to the USofA! Finishing under the 'Awesome' Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. After 30 days at sea it is now sinking in what we have undertaken. In many ways this was my biggest barrier and now I feel I'm on the homeward run, which actually makes me very sad with only 3 more months to go to our London return!

Another amazing stopover, we arrived at night, but were still greeted by lots of friends and family on the dockside and some familiar faces from past races, along with my great friend from The Mount School York; Olivia Bright, who came over especially to visit me.  After a celebratory catch up drink I went to my hotel and had the shower I had been desperately waiting for!  

The following morning it was the boat that got the deep clean... and an assessment of our sail damage during the Pacific crossing, the Yankee 3, unfortunately had to go to a sail loft for professional repairs, this meant a lot less work on sails for me over this stopover! However I spent most of the day working on some repairs to the mainsail. We then all went to the prize giving ceremony in the evening where it was good to catch up with friends from the other boats and compare our experiences over the last month. After that it was on to a Mission Performance crew meal at Pier 23 and we finished off with our traditional boat drink, a 'Dark and Stormy' (oops! I don't think I should mention this with the drinking laws in America!).

Sophie, Eva, Helen, Ben & Josh 

Plus Olivia and Dan

Next day I took some time off from work on the boat and met up with my Aunty Helen and family who had flown over for a holiday. We went for lunch over at Fisherman's Wharf and then all of us caught the Municipal railway taking us through 'the streets of San Francisco'. On the Wednesday a group of us took the boat to the island rock of 'Alcatraz' and took a tour round the prison cells, hearing stories of the legendary Al Capone and of the escapes from the island which was very interesting. Thursday, back out on Mission Performance for a 'kite shoot', with our branded spinnaker flying we headed back towards the Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz and the City skyline to have photos taken with these iconic sites. Yesterday, Friday it was back to work on the boat, this included a trip up the mast for me to sort out the blocks where our kite halyards run through and then help stow of all our food for the next leg. However I have just heard some bad news! Claire my fellow Round the World crew member will be leaving us for a short time and re-joining in Panama due to injuring her back, which must be very distressing for her. 

So today we slip lines and make our way south, this leg will be hot with plenty of light winds to play with, hopefully we will arrive for our 'slot' to transit through the Panama canal, this should be fascinating and then it will be on to Jamaica!

Our arrival into San Francisco at night.

We have achieved something Great.

Well there is good news! We lasted over 24 hours with the same sail plan after days of constant sail changes! Bad news, this was the full main and 'Wendy' the wind seeker. We've been stuck in a large wind hole for sometime which seems set over San Francisco, the wind has built now and we are doing speeds up to 8 knots, compared to Zero knots yesterday! 

It has been incredibly frustrating watching the rest of the fleet pull away and arrive into San Francisco when we know our arrival will still be around 2-3 days time. For me this part of the race has been the hardest, trying to push the boat with little wind is hard to do and when we arrive into San Francisco we will have a very busy stopover. We all know we have achieved something Great and have sailed across the Pacific, 'have seen how powerful the sea can be and will sail under the Golden Gate Bridge. It's always important to remember these things. 

Today is a rest day for me as I'm on mother duty and have decided to attempt to make pizza with stuffed cheese crusts, it's out of the oven and looks the part but I haven't tasted it yet! It is quite funny how adventurous our meals have become over the past week, onion bhajis, chicken nuggets, sausage baps and other interesting dishes, that have all turned out really well. After my little incident last week it seems a new nickname has developed; 'Tetherton' or 'Tether'on'... I'm not sure it will last but 'Biggles' is also still used! 

The hope for the next few days is that we will have a clear run with no wind holes in our way. For now we are trying our best to keep up moral on board as this is when it's most needed and look forward to seeing family and friends in San Fransisco.

Mission Performance Round The World Girl Power!

Sophie, Claire and Kate

How long was I going to be submerged in the water ? ... gone off on a strop!

These past few days have been eventful and so much has happened. Every watch we have been working hard, wrestling sails down when the wind builds suddenly and helming in difficult conditions. The other day the wind built over the morning and we had to hoist our storm jib and later our Yankee 3, it was incredibly cold and the sea state was progressively getting larger with waves washing over the side every few minutes, hail and snow squalls passing over regularly. We decided to split our watches into two teams of three and swap out in half hour rotations; The off going three sitting below deck to warm up and the other three sailing the boat through the rough conditions. By the evening the weather had reached its peak with waves around 9 meters high and wind strength between 50-60 knots.

My watch was reaching the end of its shift and I was handing over the helm to Stephen. I was attached to a helming strop which is attached to the high side of the boat while Stephen was tethered by his safety line to a jackstay between the two helms. All of a sudden the sheet of the Yankee snapped and then somehow the boat rounded up due to being hit by a large wave; The high side where I was standing then became the low side and became inverted in the water, before I could grab hold of anything the waves washed me over the side and I was hanging from the strop off the back end of the boat, my first thoughts were how long was I going to be submerged in the water and when the boat returned back to its original side and I was out of the water I tried to climb back inboard before it went back in again. The time from when I went over to the time when Claire and Matt were able to reach me seemed to take for ages but they managed to pull me in within half a minute. Apart from being a bit shocked and cold I was fine. I was taken downstairs while all hands on deck was called, the rest of the crew spent the next hour pulling down the Yankee 3 as the clew that the sheets had been attached to had ripped off, thankfully everyone returned safely and successfully.

Not long afterwards I heard about the MOB on Derry~Londonderry~Doire, and it made me realise how incredibly lucky I was, the crew member was in the water for an hour and a half while his crew searched for him. What was going through his head, the crew's and skipper's head at the time is hard to think about, but they did an amazing job retrieving him under the difficult conditions. I was still attached to the boat but that short time over the side made me realise how important it is to clip on, I was very lucky and everyone is relieved that the crew member of Derry~Londonderry~Doire is recovering well.

Now it's back to normal racing, we are taking what the weather is throwing at us and hopefully it will around 8 days before we arrive in to San Francisco, we just hope to get back the miles we lost on the fleet and race.

Action from on board Mission Performance during week 2 in the Pacific Ocean

youtu.be/3YomhlDnJc4 

A little bit of an accident, but we're all OK !

ow.ly/vhl5U