3/5/24 6:18 PM Central time
Qingdao is about 300 yards away and slightly behind us. Fingers crossed we stay ahead until the finish. Only 30 minutes! It should take us 6 hours to motor into Zhuhai. UPDATE: Update. Harry drove over a clearly marked fishing net with 20 minutes to go. The boat came to a complete stop. Hannah went over the side and got us loose. Qingdao went past us, so we’re probably still in last place. Hannah is furious. I am so disappointed. 🙁
3/5/24 2:25 PM Central time
The race committee is calling the race at 1200 UTC due to lack of wind. That’s just 4 hours from now. We’re 60 nm away, so we’ll motor in from wherever we are at that time. No idea how we’ll end up since we’re in a big clump with several boats.
3/4/24 2:26 PM Central time
We have decent wind now at 3pm. I helmed the last hours and went 2 nm more than the last person who helmed. I won’t say who! Good helming really does make a big difference. There are several boats close around us. Not sure what position we’re in. Hannah didn’t say anything at the team meeting. BCF is 10 nm behind us. We just need three points more than BCF to get out of last place. I am still very tired from being sick. Trying to take it a bit easy. Only one four-hour night watch tonight, which should let me get some extra sleep. My only duty today is Engineer, which fairly easy. Trying to eat as much food and snacks as possible.
3/4/24 2:47 PM Japan Standard time
My stomach issues have almost resolved. I was SO worried that you had the same problem while traveling. Thank goodness you don’t. I got to skip cookie duty today out of concerns that I would pass on my bug. How are we doing on the race tracker? We’re not getting much in the way of updates from Hannah. Maybe at our 1pm team meeting in an hour.
3/3/24 10:59 AM Central time
We had a good start and sailed fast overnight with the code 1 spinnaker then the code 3. We followed, then passed Qingdao. Then they passed us and this morning are literally 200 yards off our starboard beam. We are bobbing in very light air very close to four other boats including Qingdao. We all have our windseekers up. So much for a fast race! Unfortunately, I have picked up a stomach bug. Jono seems to have it also. Possibly some of the street food has caught up with me. Very bad diarrhea, stomach pain, and zero energy. 🙁 At 4pm on the 3rd, the wind has come back up as expected. We’re hard on the wind and changing to the yankee 2. Around 10 pm, DTL and Qingdao tacked and passed behind us. Again, Qingdao was just 200 yards from us. We are going to continue south for another couple of hours before tacking because there may be a wind hole south of Hainan. I hope this isn’t a mistake of not staying with our competition, but we’ll see. Feeling better now and over the worst of my stomach issues. I was able to do the 7-11 pm watch. Still very run down and dehydrated.