
One Eighty Magnus
Team Magnus in good spirit and witnessed the New Moon last night and observed 3 sea turtles today on our journey to the island. Enjoy 2nd New Year and go well, from Team Magnus.
Atalanta
Entered the light winds today on the 850nm approach to St Helena, officially the halfway mark and its looking to be light and variable for the next 5-6 days. Been a bit nerve racking as we sailed some extra distance north in the first two days to line ourselves up to approach this point of the race course. We had a good run last night with some consistent pressure in the 20’s and made some good mileage, but the fleet behind us will plow into us a bit with following breeze. Still cat and mouse with Flica, we separated further north and looking forward to see the next position report and see how we faired against Flica in the last 24hour run. Big brill hats and sunglasses out in full force whilst we trim the kite away.
Umoya
We had a speedy day, wind was favourable and cog on the rumb line. In the evening we decided to take off the spiny for safety. Early morning the spiny went up again, and we are cruising along. Mirco our chef is treating us every day with some really nice food. His German roots treated us on milch reis mit kirsch for brekkies. We have 5 sleeping bags with 6 crew of which 3 sleeping bags are similar, so there is a perpetual confusion on who has who’s sleeping bag. Today is a bit of an organising and clean up day as it is a mess. Everyone is in a good mood, but fatigue is certainly there.
Flica
Gentle conditions today, which are welcome after two difficult nights in a row and very limited sleep.
New Year’s Eve was particularly challenging with no moon and thick cloud, making for pitch black conditions. The sea was very confused with a big west swell and two other wind swells coming from different angles. Wind was very gusty, shifty and in the 20-30 knot range. This all made for very a difficult and draining while at the helm and not much sleep when not on watch.
Last night was a toned down version of NYE, so hopefully conditions settle and we can all catch up on some sleep. Otherwise, everyone healthy and happy. Stoff had a bath today, much to the relief of the rest of the crew.
Mwera
We managed to blow a hole through our brand new spinnaker hasn’t blown a hole through our morale though as the spaghetti is plentiful and the tunes are jamming! We’ve seen plenty flying fish – some of which flew straight into our hull and bounced off.
Magic Dragon
You wouldn’t believe that we were heading North towards the tropics. The last 24 hours have been very cold with everyone apart from Dorothy and Vera in full warm gear and foulies for much of the day. The girls seem to have some alternative thermostat and say they feel positively warm. Thankfully everyone has well and truly found their sea legs with Dorothy permanently buried in a book and the twins currently playing endless games of chess and Exploding Kittens (don’t ask!) on the saloon floor.
We had some larger swell come in yesterday afternoon as the wind picked up. Trying to balance speed and comfort for the children is always a bit of a pain but during the race it adds a sense of frustration at times. Hopefully the wind continues to be at least in the high teens/twenties so that we aren’t penalised too much for our lack of spinnaker. At those speeds we work pretty well under our white sails. As I write, the sun is just starting to push through the clouds and the swell has settled into a very pleasant 1.5m from the stern. Trade wind sailing really is delightful!
TinTin
James Bond Day today: our longitude is 007 E.
Had a pretty good 24 hours, completing another 207.7 miles, but now the wind is going quite light.
Yesterday afternoon the wind picked up and so, from 16:00 yesterday until 06:00 today we used our heavier S4 spinnaker. Now that the wind has dropped we are onto the lighter North S4 spinnaker.
Soon after midnight we saw that we have under 1 000 miles to go, which is always a pleasant milestone to achieve.
In the morning we had a couple more squid on board and one large Cosmopolitan Flyingfish. I promptly fried up the latter and we shared it for breakfast.
Having crossed 007° 30′ E this morning we changed ship’s time to the same as St Helena, ie: UTC. Another sign that we are getting closer to the finish.
Water depth has gone from over 4 000m this morning, to under 3 000, and is still decreasing rapidly as we approach the Walvis Ridge, which more or less marks the halfway point of the race..
Fryd
Super many thanks for the blue bucket, on which content we now have been feasting on. As the wind has lightened and the boat is less rolly, we are starting to pay attention to the chess play that was also in the bucket… Other things keeping us busy besides sometimes paying some attention to the spinnaker is fishing. We have several lines out now and hope to catch a big one. Would be fun to bring a big trophy fish to St. Helena that we can share with all of us. Andrew is “King fisherman” on board, so lets see if he delivers… Cheers from Fryd