Latest news from onboard EH01 in the ARC race 2014. Morning/Afternoon/Evening everyone... I dont even know what time of day it is its so dark outside,Well we have had an interesting night on board EH01. We had a fantastic days sailing yesterday under white sails and headed into the night hoping for it to continue. We knew some of the people ahead of us had headed into lighter breezes so we all saw the opportunity to make some good gains. As usual, as soon as the sun starts to set... the squalls seem to arrive. Every half an hour for the whole night they came and went giving us a real good soaking and providing some stiff breezes. We had shortened sail early in the night putting in a couple of reefs and hoisting our number 4 headsail and we were powering along nicely at around 8-9 knots. We managed to maintain this speed for a good 10-12 hours throughout the night which we were thankful for this morning... Every cloud has a silver lining and all that! After receiving this mornings position report we were happy to see that we had gained an average of 35 miles on the boats in front of us (except the red bandit) and had maintained or gained on the boats behind. As the sun rose, the clouds started to break up and we shook out the reefs, thinking that the worst of it was behind us. The worst was about to hit... Within about half an hour a new front of black clouds started to gather. It didnt look so much like a squall... more like the clouds over mount doom. Just as I started putting my foul weather gear back on it hit us... and hard. The rain came down first swiftly followed by about 30 knots of breeze (the wind instruments decided to die yesterday so thats my best guess!). The rain was so heavy you could not see past the perimeter of the boat in any direction. I felt like my internal organs were getting wet it was raining that hard. We made the decision to just drop the main instead of reefing and just wait for the worst to pass. We are at that stage in the race now where my main priority is now not to break anything major! If we were to blow our mainsail now, all the hard work we have put in so far would of been a waste. The main was dragged down quickly and we sped off downwind under the number 4 to ride it out. Ever the optimists, a few of us took this opportunity to take a fairly extreme fresh water shower as the water poured out the back of the folded mainsail like a waterfall. Quite a bizarre site when half the crew are sat in their full foul weather gear and a few of us are stripped down to our boardies! As the squall ended again, we re-hoisted the mainsail and have now switched back to our larger number 2 headsail. The skies are looking clear again (for now) and we are making good progress back on course! Our mission is now to try and find another opportunity to try and dry everyones kit. Most of us are down to our last dry t-shirts. I personally am out of dry underwear! All part of the ocean racing experience! At least the good ship EH01 is a good dry boat downstairs, so at least for now everyones bed is still dry! In other news... One of our crewmembers husband has surprised her by booking a wedding vow renewal for them when she arrives in St Lucia. We are all very pleased for Karen and Peter! They have kindly invited us all to the ceremony... I have assured her that I will wear my cleanest t-shirt (and my driest pair of pants!). Thankfully she has told the crew the dress code is very casual! We are still on track for hopefully arriving early Tuesday morning with just over 350 miles to go. As with all races, the closer you get to the finish line the further away it seems. With the mixed bag of weather we have had and are still expecting it looks like we could be in for a tough last 48 hours of this race. We are still committed to gaining on the boats in front... the hard work will be worth it in the end hopefully! There are still smiles on faces though! For now that is all... I am off to try and dry my clothes... and my crew!! Ciao for now, Nick and crew EH01
Posted on: Tue, 09 Dec 2014 12:52:54 +0000
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