Leg 3: Cape Town to Albany

Leg 3: Cape Town to Albany, Australia

Week 1 - Albany or Rio?

So we are about three days into leg 3 and we've managed to make a big fat circle and ended up right where we started yesterday afternoon.  It was almost as if we were sailing into Cape Town all over again!  Not exactly ideal.  We started off strong, keeping up with the top runners, but then we all hit a wind hole.  When I came up from my nap it appeared as though we had anchored next to all the boats as we were so close to them and barely moving!  I, of course, gave Garmin on our port side the standard "morning" hello and then Da Nang off our starboard side the same once I looked that direction and saw them.  They must have thought, "that crazy American is up again!"  We all slowly made our way in different directions to get out of it.  We headed west where it looked like some other boats were picking up better speed.

Out west is where shit hit the fan.  We came into some heavy winds and from the reports sounds like our boat got the worst of it coming up to gusts of 85 knots of wind.  Per usual, we acted too late and attempted to put a reef in during these winds.  We managed to snap reef 2 and 3, break a baton and lose another.  The main was also severely flogged and we probably put a good few months of usage on her after less than an hour.  However, this was not even the worst of it.  During the process, we also dropped the yankee and the sheet managed to get dragged in the water, of which no one was aware of.  Then to make matters worst, during all of this, we came across a dodgy fishing boat that wasn't on AIS coming straight for us.  Every time we tried to change course, it changed with us.  We had no choice but to turn the engine on to avoid collision with the boat since it seemed to be coming closer to have a look of the chaos that was ensuing rather than steering away and we didn't have much steering power to begin with...now remember that sheet I said was being dragged in the water?  Yep, we sure enough wrapped it around the propeller!  A feat only our boat can manage to do! 

It wasn't until a few hours later when we were trying to rig the storm jib that we noticed the end of the sheet was in the water.  When we went to retrieve it, we realized it was stuck on something.  We were hopeful it was just one of the rudders, but after several failed attempts of releasing it, we had a sneaking suspicion that it was stuck on the propeller.  We ended up using someone's GoPro to drop under the boat and get confirmation that it had indeed wrapped around the propeller.  We happen to have a certified dive instructor on our boat who actually gets paid occasionally to dive under boats to fix things.  So we very seriously considered heaving to and having him go under to unwrap the sheet.  However, the main risks with that are the following: freezing cold water, so his hands would probably go numb before he ran out of energy; we are in the middle of the ocean, so there is 1) drift and 2) the boat is knocking up and down, making it very easy for the diver to get knocked out by the boat; there are barnacles growing on the bottom side of the boat, so if he isn't knocked out, he can get very badly scraped; we have no dive equipment on the boat besides a mask and fins so he most likely would have to go in without a dry suit in order to even fully submerge himself under the boat; and the list goes on.  The only reason we were considering this is because it is very risky to sail without an engine for emergency situations.  If we have a man overboard, we have no engine to go after the casualty; we can no longer avoid a collision course again; we will need to be towed into port; and it creates drag on the boat, slowing us down.  In the end, we decided against it because the risk was too high.  So now we are sailing very cautiously and staying clipped on at all times, more than usual, because we cannot afford anyone going overboard!

Since then, we've managed to fix our reefing lines and add new batons to the broken and missing ones in the main.  We also patched a few holes that were found in the staysail.  So although we are in last place, again, we are at least sailing with decent sails still.  I heard Da Nang blew their staysail to pieces, so that may slow them down and every other boat is also dealing with their own issues.  So we can only hope the long distance to Albany will provide us some time to catch up with the rest of the fleet, with the exception of LMAX, who is of course smashing it per usual!  Cheers to them.

And on a happier sidenote, tons of albatross and whales on this leg!  Not that I got to see the whales, but there were apparently loads of them as we headed out of Cape Town.  Per Amancio, who so nicely rubbed it in that I missed all the action, it was the most amazing thing he had ever seen with that many whales all at once!

Week 2 - New experiences

We are not in last place anymore!  Our expert navigational skills are finally getting us somewhere!  If anyone is following our route, you'll notice we veered up northeast for a bit, which is the wrong direction.  However, this was intentional in order to miss a patch of no wind.  We passed it and made good winds over to the east and have now taken over Unicef!  Next is Clipper Telemed and then PSP and Da Nang!

Yesterday I was on mother watch again and got a lovely hair wash in the middle of it!  We also managed to spill everything we touched in the process.  One of our crew mates accidentally knocked over a bowl of freshly made BLT sandwiches, so we were short a lot of sandwiches and people were not happy!  Which then meant we ended up making lots of pot noodles for everyone afterwards to keep them satisfied.  Then when we were making dinner, one of the smaller pots kept slipping everywhere and sending boiling water flying!  This is why you cannot sit on the low side beneath the hob.  Then as I was pouring the boiling water into the bowl for the cous cous, I slightly dropped the bowl and cous cous went everywhere!  Filling up the starboard galley shelves with cous cous!  At that point we were already on the red light for night vision, so I had a lovely mess to clean up this morning!

We are on a new mother watch system now, which I am not entirely sure I like yet.  Instead of preparing all meals as we have done in the past, the mother only makes lunch and dinner now and everyone has to fend for themselves for breakfast.  Our watch times are a bit off this time so by the time we are up on deck and not in the middle of an evolution and ready to eat, the next watches are changing and there are too many people in the galley to even make anything.  Then I get really grumpy because I have had no coffee or food...steer clear of me!

My new goal on the boat is to learn the navigation, so I have been working with Leo to learn the ways so when we lose him after this leg (wah, wah), someone will know how to navigate the boat.  We do have other people that know how to do this, like Jesse and Amancio, but they are busy with other tasks so Leo has been our main navigator.  I am slowly learning the ways but not sure I'll ever be confident enough to make the navigational decisions on the boat!  I think I will probably be learning for a few more legs with the other two.

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Man it is freezing outside now!  I am starting to wear more and more layers to the point that I am now wearing a men's size large foulie jacket to fit over the top of all my layers.  I have two base layer pants and a mid layer pant under my foulie pants.  Then I have a T-shirt, base layer long sleeve shirt, black rio jacket, a fleece, and the Henri Lloyd mid layer jacket under the foulie jacket!  I am definitely the Michelin man now!

When it is this cold outside we try to keep deck time to a minimum and keep only 3-4 people on deck.  When you come in from the cold it isn't much warmer down below since we have no heaters on the boat.  Any little comfort helps, whether that be a crew mate warming your hands or a nice hot drink when you come down below.  I found the most amazing surprise in my sleeping bag today when I went down for my afternoon nap...a hot water bottle had been snuck into my sleeping bag and it was so cozy and warm already!  I had to go track Amancio down and thank him as I knew he was the culprit!  It is these kind gestures that really make this leg tolerable!  This also means I am back in Amancio's good graces as he was just previously pretending he didn't know who I was when we neglected to cook extra pancakes for him.  I'll be sure to make a HUE batch next time so he doesn't miss out!

Along with the cold weather we are finally starting to see some big, rolling waves to surf down!  This is actually the first time I have enjoyed helming!  It is so awesome surfing down these massive waves.  Today, as I was helming, a 100 foot wave crashed over our boat...although others on deck may think I'm exaggerating...it was awesome!  Jan was 10 secs too late to catch it on camera as I had just asked him to grab the camera moments before it hit.  That shot would have surely won us the media pic award!

I certainly have my on and off days of enjoying this leg of the race since it can get so unbearably cold on deck especially at night but days like this when the sun is out (although still cold), waves are ginormous, and having the most thoughtful crew mates makes all the difference!

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We have decided to break everything on the boat this leg.  In addition to the sailing items we broke in the first few days, we have now managed to break the grey water tank that the heads' sinks empty into and the tie bar that connects the two helms together.  Technically, we didn't break the grey water tank, but the past few days we have had unusual amounts of water in the bilges.  Sometimes very dirty other times very clear.  It wasn't until yesterday when one of the sinks in the heads was backing up and we investigated that we found a hole in the grey water tank.  We have now taped up the sinks in the heads and they can no longer be used.  This means any brushing of teeth now has to be spit into the toilets, into the food bio bin, or overboard.  This also means no more washing hair....oh man my hair is going to be sooo dirty by the time I get to Albany!  I already am concocting another way to wash my hair with a bucket and some fresh boiled water!  Maybe that will be even better than using the sinks in the first place!

As for the tie bar, this bar connects the port and starboard helms together, which connect to both rudders under the boat, so you only have to helm on one side.  This means we now have to have at least two helms going at any time since each helm controls a different rudder.

In addition to all this excitement, there apparently was a sighting of penguins by Derry, so now we have to be on the lookout for penguins!  Although, there is a lot of doubt that it was penguins that were actually spotted by them.  I'll be keeping a lookout either way!

Week 3 - Finally making some progress

I got my first cold on the boat.  The English cure colds much different than I am used to.  When I went to Lucy asking for some cold medicine, she recommended that I take Tylenol and drink a lemon and ginger tea.  I explained that I have no pain or fever and that I am just congested, so why would I take Tylenol?  After much back and forth of me explaining what I was looking for and her explaining what we had, we realized that there was Tylenol Cold & Flu on the boat which is what she was referring to in the first place!  In addition to the medicine, she also had me drink the tea and rub tiger balm on my sinuses to decongest me.  Within minutes, my nose was running, so we figured it worked!  I guess I shouldn't second guess the doctor's orders!  Lucky for me I just happened to find some DayQuil stashed away in my stuff today!  So back to my home remedies of smashing vitamins and taking DayQuil to knock this cold out quick!

As far as the leader board goes, we finally overtook Telemed and are on hot pursuit of PSP!  Next will be Da Nang, although we may run out of days to overtake them.  Guess that staysail didn't stop them too much.  As for Telemed, we won't know until the final days if we end up beating them or not since they took a very far north route and we took the southern route, so we won't know until we meet on the other side if their route proves good or not.  Let's hope it doesn't and we end up taking 9th place in front of Unicef, Telemed, and PSP!

The crew is now starting to count down the days we have to make it to Albany.  This always happens as we approach a new destination.  Although, we try to avoid doing this because when we hit a wind hole in the process it just adds more days and drops the morale on the boat.  However, currently, today is the 20th of November and I am really hoping we make it to Albany by early morning on the 26th at the latest so we can have a proper Thanksgiving feast!  Although, no idea how long customs will take in Australia as they are apparently very strict with what can enter the country.  So we have to have the boat searched for any contraband which for us, mainly includes food that isn't allowed into the country.  Long story short, I'm hoping we smash it these last couple of days and have plenty of time to get through customs in time for Thanksgiving!  I have also been considering asking Ralph, our Visit Seattle sponsor to have a Thanksgiving feast ready to be delivered to our boat on arrival if we are not allowed off the boat in time to have a proper meal...hopefully it doesn't come to that!

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The last couple of days we had great sailing and made great speeds.  We easily made it in before Telemed as their northern route didn't work out so well and they got stuck in a massive wind hole for numerous days and only just got in to port yesterday!  I would not be happy if I was on that boat, poor Linda!  We ended up overtaking PSP and best of all, made it home early morning around 3 AM on the 25th!  It was a dramatic finish having no engine and limited depth to catch a tow, but we finally got the sails down and got towed in.  However, Unicef, who was supposed to be planning a Thanksgiving feast were not back in time so there was no Thanksgiving to be had which is a bit sad.  I did try to see if there were any places in Albany to get a turkey dinner and I just got blank stares.  It was worth a try!

Leg 4 starts on November 1st, where we sail to Sydney for a long stopover to do major maintenance on the boat.  Then the 2nd race of the leg is the famous Sydney to Hobart race!  Then from there to Airline Beach, which will conclude Leg 4.

Random photos from leg 3

Best costume ever...fit over my foulies!

Jesse made us a Finnish cinnamon roll on his mother water!

So yummy!

My hot water bottle surprise!

Leo passed out under the red lights.

Singing on the deck with Jesse

Preparing for Karaoke in Albany

Chilling on deck

Huw and his loud swim trunks in the freezing cold

Photos from the GoPro

Huw has a great face in this one

My jacket is huge!

Selfie roll, Leo...

Me...

Jan...

I'm on the left, my feet don't touch the ground, standard

Me on the helm, barely seeing over and dipping the edge in the water

Just missed the wave, but you can see the aftermath of the water running over the deck!  I am also giving a "WTF" face back to the helm as I empty my sleeves of water.

No hands!

Made it in!