With the majority of the fleet back racing by the weekend, most crews quickly settled into their routines again and by Sunday there was a flood of news coming in from many of them. Our Facebook page was kept busy all day as they turned up. One of the first was a post from Rod aboard Maverick.
07/04/2018 A day of miles today. The wind stayed the same direction and speed all day and it was rough. 25-35kts. Were making OK progress but were slipping from the pack a little. We are sailing conservatively with the heavy jib and 2 reefs which means were sailing a 1kt slower than the mob. You know its rough when you start using the P bottle. Sort of like the tall blonde who walked past my window the other day, I knew she was tall because I was on the second floor. The seas are quite rough today and its challenging getting around the boat. Also a milestone day today in that we have left the Australian coast and are now heading into the Coral Sea and towards the Solomon Sea which is about 720nm away. We have travelled 1400nm to date. Our first retirement today with Nexba not resuming racing. Its a bit sad as I know how much effort he put into it. The wind is due to abate somewhat tonight and we wont be seeing anymore strong winds for a while except for the ITCZ squalls. The last I looked on the tracker, they had us finishing on 10th May. My numbers say a little earlier than that with 3rd May.
One of the boats that wasn’t under way at this point was Utopia 2001. They’d had some electrical issues which thankfully they’d been able to sort through.
On Utopia 2001 we’re still in Southport, all turned out pretty frustrating, nobodies fault really. We got our battery problem sorted out yesterday (Friday), pretty annoyed because my batteries were just 2 years old and they were the same brand etc that I had onboard for 8 years previously!
The refrigeration setup that I had recommissioned last year failed big time and after the guys spending 26 hours, they worked through the night, we still couldn’t purge the water. so after spending a lot of $$’s, no result. We would have to hang around until probably Wednesday to get it sorted.
We will set off again Sunday morning ASAP. I have to get some stores as we lost a bit and we used a heap of fuel keeping the batteries up. John & Steve – Utopia 2001.
In the short time that Bill and Aaron had been back in the race, they’d been having a wild ride on Matrix Realoaded.
We have had a bit on at times over the last 24hrs, constant wind at 30 knots and gusting 35-40 knots. We had 3 sail reaching for a lot of it.
We put up our 120sqm kite for a couple of hrs in 35knts of breeze, new top speed of 24.7 knots, the boat was awash, underwater for most of the time, what a blast. Then we found the kite snuffer pull down line had come off so we now had a big problem, how to get the kite down in 35 knts of breeze without socking it first. Anyway we came up with a plan and managed to get it back onboard without destroying it or ourselves, what a relief.
Now back to 25knts of breeze full main, no 1 headsail up and staysail, trucking along between 10 to 12 knots over the ground. Also last night whilst blasting along in 20 knts of boat speed, water was blasting up from the sink, into the usb charger point, we had smoke coming from it not good. Anyway time for breakfast. Team matrix out.
Lord Jiminy had made a start on Friday from Southport but had done a U-turn soon after.
Finally underway again after returning to Southport for a second visit to fix a problem with the Autopilot. A small issue in the end caused by water getting into the head unit. This should of course be a waterproof unit but the water inside ours suggests otherwise. Its helpful sailing with a tech genius and Paul got the thing sorted PDQ once we tied up at the jetty. Thanks again to Southport for their hospitality and sorry we didn’t get to see any of the games.
I find leaving port a real challenge, knowing we are heading back out to sea for a very long time, away from family makes me sad. The challenge ahead is of course exciting and daunting, the rewards no doubt substantial but I do love the people I leave behind.
We will be coming up to our official restart position in a few hours, a spot we didn’t quite get to yesterday and it‘s at this point we start racing again. We will record the time we pass this latitude with our race committee and we will be back racing again. Not that we’re going exactly slow right now. Currently sitting on 9.5-10kn over ground which is pretty spritely for the conditions.
So it’s back to the routine again of sleeping, eating, cleaning and generally keeping LJ moving. Both Paul and I are in good spirits, healthy and eager for good sailing conditions.
CB & Paul
We’ve all been keeping an eye on Jo and Peter on Morning Star, especially as they’d crossed the Equator late Friday night. Here’s an Email from Jo that came in on Sunday.
We are very excited to be making good progress in the Northern Hemisphere!
Crossing the equator was a big milestone for us. It doesn’t matter how many times you cross it, it always feels like a special occasion. It was only half an hour after a shift change, so no big hassle to stay up for. My home club, The Tamar Yacht Club had prepared an equator crossing package for us. This included a bottle of bubbles to share with the sea, a few poems and some information on the sea gods we were attempting to appease.
Just to make sure we made a real Occasion of it, they also there in some wigs and novelty sunglasses as well! The suggestion was made on Facebook that one of Pete’s eyebrows may make a good offering for a safe voyage north, but we did decide against it in the end. It was also a real treat to have a nice breeze at the equator! We had been expecting to be serenaded by slapping sails as we filmed the chart plotter tick over to North. Instead we enjoyed a nice 10 knot north easterly breeze, helping us put a few more miles in the right direction.
We are now in the fortunate position of being the first boat out of the doldrums. We are pushing hard to reopen the gap between the boats hunting us down while they battle through those difficult latitudes.
Cheers, Jo
And of course we received our first piece of news from Chinese Whisper late on Sunday, which we’ve already posted.