Leg 6 Race 8 Day 5, Fri April 24th

Saturday 24th: 0300 – 0700
Although it's weird to be getting up at 2.30am I got a decent amount of sleep and although slightly cooler now, the addition of a fleece hat is all that's required to keep me warm. The stars are coming and going behind hop-scotch cloud and the winds which had lulled are now back up. We're flying along at a steady 13 knots which was good. The down-side meant everything was now much more loaded – winches, sheets and the helm which ...
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Leg 6 Race 8 Day 4, Fri April 23rd

Today is a milestone day for me – it's my first day when I'm back on deck on watch since my tussle with a huge wave back in the previous race. I don't mind admitting to being a little nervous and worried that I'd forgotten lots of things and joked with Tom, our watch leader that he'd need to give me a full tour of the deck and asked the previous watch to leave post-it notes on everything with its name and what it should be used for!!!

Needless to say it was ...
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Leg 6 Race 8 Day 3, Thurs April 22nd

Today is my final day of 3 mother watches on the trot. I'm looking forward to being able to work with a co-mother at last and be able to give a bit more time to the engineer role. The problem with eagerly anticipating something is that you're frequently let down. This morning was no exception. Cara arrive bright and an hour early for her watch. She was one of the crew who had been ill but had also shown great signs of recovery later. She looked fine this m...
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Leg 6 Race 8 Day 2, Weds April 21st

At around 4am, I rounded a corner and happened across a fitful sleep which was broken all too so by Charlie, peering around my shower curtain (leaky fore-hatch protection) saying it was 6am and time to get up. Breakfast was to be a solo affair in the galley. This was all part of my new mother-watch plan. As the new watch system would make the sleep patterns of the mothers from each watch very one sided I tried to even it out by having one mother do breakfas...
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Leg 6 Race 8 Day 1, Tues April 20th

Leg 6 Race 8 – San Francisco to Panama

Tues April 20th – Day 1

The noisy clatter of rain on deck accompanied by the steady trickle of water, splashing down from the forward hatch onto the sail bags below, was the opening fanfare to race start day. The sunshine and welcome warmth of the previous few days had vanished and in their place, grey skies and the eerie whistling of the wind through the halyards and around the steadfast masts, which seemed to heral...
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Leg 5, Race 7 – Day 27, 27th March

Got up with my watch on night duty and being able to do little else, made a cake for the Californian crew as we would be doing a transfer to them later in the day and thought it would a nice gesture to send them some goodies. My usefulness then being over and as I still wasn't on top form I was excused and set back to bed.

I was woken by hearing repeated messages from Pete, the Californian skipper on the radio. His handheld VHF had died so he was using his m...
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Leg 5, Race 7 – Day 26, 26th March

5am – whack! – I rolled with some force from one side of my bunk into my leecloth. Whack! The boat angled sharply back the other way again. “Shit!” Was my immediate reaction. I knew the boat sounds enough to know we'd just crash gybed – twice. As soon as it happened I also heard the wind whistle up to a crescendo. It was obvious we'd had a repeat performance of 5 or so days earlier. I struggled out of my bed and into my clothes as fast as I could ...
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Leg 5, Race 7 – Day 25, 25th March

At 1.30am Tom duly woke me and brought me my pills and some water to my bunk – bless him! I got up anyway – I'd been trying my hardest to keep within my watch system – even though it wasn't safe for me to go on deck as I couldn't hold on! I sat in the nav station and started writing a note to Elaine K on California – as I thought it would be nice for her to get a friendly note. After about half I suddenly felt very ill very quickly and found myself ...
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Leg 5, Race 7 – Day 24, 24th March

I went to bed with a bit more purpose, promising to start on the galley inventory for Albert during night-watch.  We now had the prospect of spending an additional week at sea as we would be staying with California all the way there – they had no comms facilities and were effectively “lost” without them. We would a) need to keep them in sight at all times and b) be their comms to and from the outside world – give them weather and position reports, b...
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