Eat, Pray, Sail: Leg 2 - Rio to Cape Town

Leg 2: Rio to Cape Town, October 7th - October 23rd, 2015

Well we are a week into Leg 2 already and this is the first time I have managed to write a blog. Our watch system is a bit different in this leg causing us to be more "on watch" when we are on deck and we have little down time when we are off. Or at least all I want to do is sleep during my off watch. I have finally found some time to jot some things down...not sure what the heck is going on upstairs though...the boat is jostling all over the place! Maybe we have finally crossed paths with this hurricane that was threatening to hit us up...

Visit Seattle in the lead!

Race start off from Rio was awesome! We ended up in second place after take off! Heading upwind, boat fully heeled over and getting doused in waves splashing over the bow, with all the boats behind us! It was spectacular! Too bad I was in crew kit instead of my racing gear because I was drenched by the end of it and my black cotton shorts are still drying a week later. It was a rough couple of days at first with everyone getting sick right off the bat in the beating upwind conditions. I was on mother duty already for the first day and we were having issues with our grey tank pump. The grey tank is where all the water from the galley sink goes down. Occasionally, or all the time rather, small bits of food slip through the drain and the grey water ends up smelling horribly. So the result of a broken grey tank pump means the entire galley smells like death! Add in this stench along with the upwind sailing and almost everyone was vomiting within minutes of coming down below deck. I still have managed to keep a strong stomach during everything but that smell almost had me going. Karri jumped in to help me in the galley since my mother parter was in bad shape and we very slowly made it through the day getting dinner ready for the boat. Karri served up a delicious beef stew which no one ate since everyone was sick. From now on, it will just be pasta and sauce in a jar for the first couple days of each leg, lesson learned.

After the start, we were quickly overtaken by the rest of the fleet and settled into the middle of the pack where we like it best. We were happily sailing along for a few days when the tack line of Alexander (Code 2) got wrapped around the bow sprit, again! All we could think is we can't break the bow sprit again! We were going to drop the kite, but thought we might be able to jimmy the tack line off if we eased up some. It luckily worked and we were back in action! However, a few hours later, the halyard, holding up the head of the kite, blew and the kite went flying into the water! This was in the middle of the night and it was pitch black with no moon or starts for light. The only light we had was from the steaming light on the boat to make sure the spinnaker was flying okay. We immediately centered the main but were not quick enough to heave the boat to, which resulted in the ultimate destruction to Alexander. The boat sailed right over the kite and we were dragging it in the water as it was being pulled against the barnacled underside of the boat and the rudders. It was all hands on deck trying to rescue the kite out of the water. Once we finally managed to pull him on board, we saw that the entire kite had been ripped from head to clew, making the kite useless to us. Not only was the kite ripped, but it was a jagged tear and extremely frayed. There is no hope to repair this damage onboard so we will have to go on sailing without a code 2 and assess the damage once we get to Cape Town and can lay Alexander out to see the full extent. The sail loft may be the only hope in saving Alexander at this point, which means serious deduction points for our team.

Poor Alexander :(

After that we flew the yankee for a bit but then switched over to Joan, Code 3. It wasn't long before we trashed her as well. The foot line, which creates tension in the foot of the sail, ripped out of the clew and up about halfway down the the foot of the sail. We took her down to quickly start the repair on board. During the stopover in Rio, I was added to the sail repair team, so Jesse, myself and a few others worked nonstop, two at a time during each watch, to repair the tear in the foot to prevent any future damage. Jesse wanted the sail up by 0700, but the wind shifted and we have still yet to use her. Let's hope our repair holds up though!

Jesse and I repairing the sail

The waves and wind have increased and we are getting a lot more fruity waters. We haven't seen the sun more than five minutes a day, if that, since we left Rio and last night was the first night I have seen stars on this leg which only lasted a couple of hours. This leg is a lot more gloomier, cloudy, and mostly wet! It mists a lot throughout the day and various waves are constantly crashing over, meaning we are wet all the time on deck. The wetness surprisingly isn't that bad since it isn't completely freezing yet. The worst is at night, when it gets chillier and my hands are wet the entire time. I have realized how much I hate having wet hands! Last night was the first night I wore the fisherman's gloves that were recommended to buy and they sure worked well but I felt like the Michelin man with my mid layers under my jacket and puffy gloves or Randy from The Christmas Story for those familiar with the classic movie, "Ralphy, Ralphy! I can't get up!" Good thing I have helpful crew mates who can help zipper me up!

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We just completed the ocean sprint and so much has happened! After my last post, we wrapped Joan (Code 3) around the inner forestay...that was all the ruckus I was hearing above when I was writing before. The kite continued to be wrapped for over a day as we made numerous attempts to send people up the mast to untangle the massive twists. Jesse came up with multiple ideas and each failed. He finally concocted a wrap net out of sail ties to contain the balloon in the middle of the twists. That seemed to help a bit and then they were able to untwist the kite from the bottom or so I think...the kite was magically unwrapped when I was on another mother duty. I thought they were joking with me, but indeed they finally succeeded in getting the kite down! There was talk of just tightly wrapping the rest of the kite around the forestay and sailing all the way to Cape Town like that. We thought it would have made great pictures as we came up into view! But we will probably make it much faster and safer now that it is down.

Beginning of the wrap...

We only lost 5 positions and are now in last place because of it (said in a sarcastic tone)....urgh! Right before the wrap, we were neck and neck with Unicef, who we could actually see out on the water as we sped pass them. Then the kite got wrapped and they came back into view and surged pass us. Their kite actually collapsed as it passed us and I thought the both of us might be stranded for a bit with twisted kites. It is crazy that you actually run into the other boats in the middle of the ocean during these races!

If you look closely, you can see Unicef on the horizon.

As for the ocean sprint, we were making good head way but because of our kite wrap, we were not in an ideal position to start the sprint since it left us with much more distance to cover. We ended up sailing into a wind hole to help get the kite down. As such, we had to average around 12.5 knots an hour to take the lead. We were getting great results but the wind died down overnight so we decided to bail out and head in the best direction to get to Cape Town faster. At this point, I'm just hoping LMAX, who started 5 days after everyone due to the beaching, doesn't overtake us...sidenote, did you see that our top performing boat was beached in Rio? Like proper beached! Classic!

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Only a few days left until we make it to Cape Town now! The first boats are due to arrive sometime today and we are hoping to arrive on Friday. So not our best race considering we are still currently in last place but we are slowly catching up to Unicef at a snail's pace. We have bets going on when we will cross the finish line, winner gets a free drink from everyone...aka, winner will be smashed once we make it to the first bar in Cape Town after twenty free drinks of the buyer's choice...so I'm actually hoping not to win this one. I'm going for a 10:23 finish time.

For the past two days we assessed and repaired the Code 3 that was wrapped around the forestay for over a day. She surprisingly held up well with only a few minor weak spots which we were able to repair on the boat. Karri even brought out the sewing machine for the first time to sew down the patches! That thing is a beast! As for the Code 2, which we ran over in the water, there isn't much we can do there in the boat, so looks like I'll be spending a lot of days in Cape Town doing sail repair if we are able to do any of the repairs ourselves...wah, wah, wah.

Today was the first day I was able to grab the Spanish flashcards Pablo made us. In case I didn't mention this in the Leg 1 blogs, we had two Spanish gentlemen onboard who were casually teaching us some Spanish. However, Pablo didn't think we were getting adequate lessons or phrases that would actually be useful to us, so he so kindly spent hours in Rio and made us some Spanish flashcards of useful words and phrases out of postcards! Now I will be able to expand on the main two phrases I have learned from Amancio, "Estoy muy loca!" y "Que me mato con mi moto!" Special thanks to Pablo for the cards! That was so very, very thoughtful of you! The goal by the end of the race is to be fluent in Spanish and, of course, my British accent!

So quick Leg 2 recap...

- smashed it at race start coming in second over the start line!

- lots of people sea sick and then other germs spreading like wildfire (I missed out, thank goodness!)

- Code 2 head donut blows, run over kite and smash it, literally

- Wrap code 3 for 32 hours, sail into wind hole to get her down and lose 150 miles

- enjoy some time of non heeled boat living

- drive through a storm with up to 69 knots of wind consistently in the 50s and get dumped on by floods of waves overboard

- sail up to Cape Town with the most amazing sailing weather and gorgeous day!

- drive through another wind hole as we are minutes from Cape Town, start deep clean as we wait, wind shifts...tack, tack, tack...huge mess below deck!

- celebrations commence in Cape Town!

I'm already in love with this place!