10/10/23 1:51 PM Central time
The boat is at the dock in Cape Town!!!
10/10/23 8:26 AM Central time
We saw Table Mountain from 34 nm away when it appeared through the clouds. It is huge! I’ve never seen land from this far away. Without clouds, we probably could have seen it 50 nm away. ETA to finish is about 5:30pm TODAY!
11/8/23 9:04 AM Central time
Our watch was up early helping the other watch drop the code 2 and set the code 1, since the wind went light overnight. It’s a beautiful, sunny day and warmer. We saw our first ship since leaving Punta. I have not seen a single aircraft, but Cam saw one last night. We did see an exceptionally large albatross. Its wingspan was probably 7 feet. Just before our midday meeting, the distance to go clicked over from 300 to 299 nm. Unfortunately, that is not going quickly enough to save me from cooking duty tomorrow.
11/7/23 sent in with 11/8 email
We gybed for Cape Town early this morning after going into stealth mode at midnight. We set the code 2 about 600 nm out and have been making good speed since. Hoping to be able to continue flying the code 2 during the night, but will have to see how things go. Our ETA looks like late on the 10th. We’re in touch with the Hyde sailmaker and he recommended how to repair our code 3. Looks like we can repair it for less than 500 pounds and not incur any penalty points. Today was warm and sunny. Very enjoyable. Izzy and Steven made 18 pizzas for lunch! I hit 22.7 knots today, which I believe is my personal record. We are all ready to arrive in Cape Town and be on land again! I am dreaming of bacon cheeseburgers!
11/6/23 10:32 PM Central time
We have gybed and are heading pretty much directly to Cape Town! About 600 nm away. In stealth mode, so probably not on the tracker. Hoping good winds hold for the remainder of the leg, but weather model shows light air at some point between us and the finish. At least we are ticking down the miles now. The 11th looks doable if the wind holds.
11/6/23 11:48 AM Central time
Wow, what a day… The other watch set the code 3 spinnaker last night, but didn’t rig a retrieval line. About 6am (not in the dark thank God) they broached. They couldn’t get it down without a retrieval line, so the boat heeled over hard and stayed down. In the confusion, a spinnaker sheet was completely released and went under the boat. The spinnaker ended up flying from the top of the mast. Cam managed to rig a retrieval line somehow and the spinnaker was finally recovered. The boat was actually going backwards at some points. Surprisingly, the sail was not is pieces and can be repaired. Vasi and Olly have spent hours sewing. Just another self-inflicted error… We are now sailing 120 deg on a course which misses Cape Town completely. Hannah is planing to go all of the way to the lay line before gybing. This is called “banging the corner” and is a big no-no in yacht racing. It’s very hard to judge laylines especially 600 nm out. Lots of increased risk to us. We had lots of wind on our day watch today and I was helming we we set a daily speed record of 20.0 knots! With a full mail and yankee #2, it took 32 knots of true wind at 120 apparent wind angle, and a 20 ft wave from behind. The boat surfs down the wave and takes off like a rocket!
11/5/23 2:35 PM Central time
Our 7-11pm watch last night was really tough. We had quartering seas from the stern which made it very had to steer. I was really struggling on the helm so Hannah came up and drove for a while. She is really good on the helm. A squall blew in and we got hit with winds as high as 47 knots. Cam has been out for a couple of days with migraines and probably also just fatigue. Hannah is exhausted having to pick up some of his duties. Most of us us have crashed and burned at some point. The crew has been left on its own more and I believe we’re stepping up.
11/4/23 11:19 AM Central time
Just had the most horrific watch experience tonight. We are in low pressure system with rain and gusty winds. There are only three of us available on our watch who helm at night, we did 90 minute turns on the helm instead of 60. That may not seem like a big difference, but it is when the rain is horizontal and feels like icy needles on your face and the boat is bucking like a bronco. The only thing I could see was the instruments, the compass, the the glow of red lights from down below—nothing outside the boat. Cam kept giving helpful information like “Head up five degrees” while I was looking at a compass card that was whirling like a Dervish. Just incredibly stressful. What a change a day makes! I was up early to help the other watch change from the yankee #3 to #2. The front had passed while we slept. Today is sunny, warmer, and windy. We made 10-13 knots with a high of 26.4. It was one of my best days sailing ever. Waves were 12-15 feet with the odd 20 foot roller. At our noon meeting in the cockpit, Hannah announced that we have 1009 nm to go and we did 229 nm in the last 24 hours. The forecast is for continued strong winds backing behind us for the next several days. We could be in Cape Town on the 8th!
11/3/23 7:54 AM Central time
We did an all-hands yankee change in the early morning. Quite an ordeal in the conditions. Winds have increased and we are making great time to Cape Town. In the morning, Izzy and Lucy were attacked by an albatross that tried to land on their heads. No kidding. It involved lots of screaming. Unfortunately, Greg is seeing flashes of light in his eye nearest his head injury and is on light duty until Cape Town.
11/2/23 11:07 AM Central time
Greg is our latest injury. He was tossed off the helm and fell across to the end of his tether. He hit his head hard on the other helm cage and looks like he’s lost a bar fight. I’ve picked up a terrible cough that’s going around all of the boats. I haven’t mentioned it, but we’ve had two MOBs. Hannah was able wrestle one back onboard, but the other one was on a long tether and was in the water for 10 minutes before we made a recovery using a halyard. This kind of stuff could be much more dangerous in big seas and heavy wind. We had a great day today sailing. The wind is great and the sun is out now. This morning it rained a bit and I could see my breath. I wish we were doing better, but it is what it is. No one seems super competitive. Everyone who wants to can steer, which slows us down. Lots of drama with the crew. We had a group meeting to talk about our feelings. LOL. You can imagine mine.
10/31/23 10:05 PM Central time
Hello from the Roaring 40s! Well, not really roaring tonight, but a nice 20+ knot breeze. I was on watch last night for the first time in two days due to my back injury. The excitement tonight was Greg falling while going off helm and hitting his head on the opposite helm cage. Quite an impressive head injury. Looks like he lost in a bar fight. Cam got to pretend to be our medical professional since Dan left us. The list of medical issues we’ve had is long: conjunctivitis, falls, back injuries, colds, coughs, etc. Just tonight I seem to have caught the stuffy-nose-and-cough bug that’s going around. I keep waking up due to mini panic attacks from difficulty breathing. Cam has injured his shoulder, have about 50% usage, and now running around like a one-armed monkey. Cam has just called for the other watch to drop the yankee #2 and raised the yankee #1. Thank God I’m off watch and warm in my bunk. The Adventure of My Lifetime (TM) continues.
10/31/23 9:00 AM Central time
I am feeling better today. The meds seem to have helped my back. I may try going on deck. I’ve been in my bunk for about a day and a half. The weather is much better today. Not nearly as rough as yesterday. Tomorrow is my cookie day with Peter. Hopefully I can get through that. Liz and Hannah actually carve a pumpkin for Halloween and set it up in the galley.
10/30/23 9:48 AM Central time
Bit of bad news here. I hurt my back night before last and it got much worse last night. I’m out of action for probably a couple of days. It’s the regular muscle spasm problem I have every so often. Not nearly as bad as usual. Cam used the telemedicine service and I’m on painkillers and ibuprofen gel every 6 hours. Also a hot water bottle. It bothers me that I’m not able to help my watch. I still seem to be loosing weight even though I’m eating as much as I can. Just heard Cam say that he thinks we’ll arrive on the 12th. I believe Leg 3 starts on the 16th. Not sure how that will work in terms of preparing the boat and restocking the food. Very rough last night with the boat often slamming violently. Better today, but still slamming some and heeling way over. What we need is some fast downwind sailing. Having to take lots of water out of the bilges. Racing boats have flat, shallow hull shape so they can plane and go fast. Unfortunately, that means no deep bilge with a pump. There are several bilges, so we have to pull floorboards and use a bucket and scoop to get the water out. Bob and I got 20 buckets out of one yesterday. Just very hard work.
10/29/23 3:38 PM Central time
Ugh… Back to life on a 45 degree angle where doing anything requires a huge amount of effort and energy. It’s probably going to stay this way for maybe three days. I have pulled a muscle in my back, which makes things even harder. The is also some bug going around. Hope I don’t get that. Cam added something about my Golden Sail Hank Award to the CV30 Clipper blog. It includes me throwing up, so hope not too embarrassing. I’d like to save whatever he wrote. The good news is that we are now in 7th place, up from 10th. I’m not OK with being one of losers. We’re at 39 deg 51 min latitude (just 9 nm from the Roaring Forties!) and sailing a COG of 110 deg which takes us further south, so we may be there sometime tonight. Time to climb out of my warm, cozy bed, have dinner and do our 7-11pm watch.
10/28/23 5:07 PM Central time
I spent a nice couple of hours on the helm this afternoon. Winds are diminishing. Down to about 8 knots when I finished. We see lots of seabirds flying during the day, but have never seen one catch anything or dive into to water. We don’t see them flying at night when there is a bright full moon. Not sure what they do at night. We had two more reports issues with other boats had during the storm. BCF had a steering failure which took six hours to repair. They had been in 2nd place. Ha Long Bay lost a spinnaker overboard with attached sheets. It wasn’t attached at the tack. They went back for it and put a swimmer over the side to recover it.It’s looking like a cold watch tonight, but otherwise easy.
10/28/23 12:03 PM Central time
Just finished a wonderful breakfast of bacon and pancakes after our night watch. We are just 50 nm from the Roaring 40s, but the conditions are nearly perfect—warmish, sunny, a light breeze. Much more like the Chesapeake. We just dropped the code 3 and put up the yankee #1 and staysail. We are actually sunbathing on our day watch today. It’s hard to believe that we are on the same ocean. We have 13 knots from the north and we’re doing 7-9 knots touching 12 ever so often. We’re going the direction that we want to go which is ESE. Everyone’s spirits are high. We’re taking the opportunity to dry out and relax. We have moved into 7th place. Dale, the assistant race director who has taken over as skipper on Qingdao, came south with us. Those two things are validating our decision to take a flyer. A group of boats is roughly at our longitude, but 150 nm north. We should do well on them if the forecast weather holds. UNICEF was in sight at dawn about 6nm behind us, but we pulled ahead of them during the day and the are out of sight. Some of the crew are now making a TikTok video. I have forcefully declined to participate.
10/27/23 12:20 PM Central time
Hannah and Cam have definitely decided to take a “flyer” and go south. UNICEF followed. Very risky, so we’ll see how it plays out. Their thought is that it’s better than playing follow the leader when in the back of the pack. We expect to be in a wind hole soon with the other boats. Hopefully, the wind will fill from the south which would be a huge advantage for boats further south. We are higher than 38 south latitude, which means less than 120 nm from the Roaring 40s. Despite that, we had a beautiful, relatively-warm day of downwind sailing with the code 3 spinnaker. No sail changes. Easy peasy. We had 18-20 seas this morning, but down to 8-10 this afternoon. I got the Golden Hank Award today. It’s given to a crew member who’s done something extraordinary. A hank is a bronze clip used to attach a foresail to a stay. It’s the size of the palm of my hand. When they jam, they have to be cut off the sail. Cam gave it to me today for persevering through the rough patch the last couple of days and coming back strong today. We have seen what I assume to be albatrosses for the last several days. They are much larger than the other seabirds we’ve seen so far. Please let Eleanor and Shark Todd know. Time for a nap and then cleaning the heads which is the essence of elite yacht racing. LOL
10/27/23 1:46 AM Central time
Today is much better. Just got off my night watch. The moon is full and everything is silvery. The 20 ft waves we had yesterday are down to 10-12. Not nearly as cold and wet. We have gone to the yankee #1 and a full mail. The wind is just forward of the beam and we’re waiting for it to go aft so we can set a spinnaker. Hoping for a nice day of downwind sailing tomorrow so the crew can recover from the last 48 hours.
10/26/23 7:14 AM Central time
Winds last night in the storm were in the 40s. We were beating into that, so apparent winds were in the 50s. Today is much better. We were changing headsails today and a large group of flying fish went across the bow. With the sunlight behind us, it looked like a shiny silver bracelet floating through the air. Just the most amazing thing. We have gone much further south except for one other boat. We’re betting on a favorable wind shift. Hoping to be sailing downwind soon.
10/23/23. 6:14 PM Central time
Very bad night. I can’t describe how violent the motion of the boat is. We were just absolutely pounded by a storm last night. I missed my night watch due to seasickness. Poor Lucy was actually crying at one point. The mood is very bleak. I was just able to eat a bagel and should be able to do my watch at 1pm.
10/23/23 4:53 PM Central time
Very light air today. We’ve used the windseeker when it was super light. Nothing like the weather that was forecast. The other watch had a whale broach about 30 feet from the boat. Our watch heard them close by as they came up to breathe, but couldn’t see them in the fog. After our watch, I could hear the whales through the hull from my bunk! Ha Long Bay hit was hit by lightning, which took out their wind instruments, so we disconnected our instruments at the mast during the remainder of the thunderstorm. Our 7-11pm watch was rainy and cold. I was navigator, so I was able to spend some time each hour out of the weather at the nav. I’m able to see the last reported team positions and the boats that are close enough to get AIS info. We seem to be doing well, but it’s hard to say given the fluky winds. At one point Cam thought we were in 3rd place. Our 3-7am watch was the roughest, hardest sailing I’ve ever done. It took us half the watch to get the yankee #1 down, bagged and put away in pouring rain. I did manage to get some good GoPro video from the helm just after dawn. We put up the yankee 3 with 3 reef in the main. The waves were big and we bashed through them. We passed another boat close by. Not sure which one in the gloom and rain. They were slow because the were doing a headsail change and don’t have up a yankee, just a staysail. It was so rough that I was unable to leave the back of the boat until conditions were better. When I was finally able to go off watch, I fell to to end of my tether. Luckily, I was using my short tether and didn’t fall far.
10/23/23 12:42 PM Central time
We started Race 3 today after a wonderful stay in Punta del Este. We should arrive in Cape Town in 15-18 days. The US ambassador to Uruguay, Heide Fulton, came aboard at the dock before the race to wish us well. We have four new crew: Al, Steven, Lucy, and Peter. I think they will work out well. It’s actually easier with 15 crew instead of 20. A ship from Uruguay Navy was anchored off the end of the starting line and used one of its guns to make the sound signals for the start. Very impressive with lots of smoke! A military helicopter circled low over the fleet. The wind started dying as we approached the 3pm start. We had chosen to put on the yankee #2 believing the weather forecast of building wind. Some boats did the same. Other boats were putting on their yankee #1. After a wind shift, we also put on the code 1 spinnaker since it was looking like a downwind start. Seven minutes before the start a wind line came in from east bringing easterly winds at about 12 knots. An upwind start. We should have sailed the winds we had and not the forecast winds. The boats with the #1 yankees steadily pulled ahead. We finally switched to our #1 about 6pm. About 12:30 am, a pod of dolphins swam around the boat. They were clearly visible in the moonlight.