This race started in the usual way, the boats slipping from the docks in a predetermined order, then a parade around the marina, then race start with several markers to hit and off to the actual race...these race starts scare me shitless every time! The boats are all very close as we round the markers and in my mind, we are within inches of hitting one another! And it has happened in the past that boats have run into other boats so it isn't in the realm of impossibilities. We managed to round all the markers without hitting anyone though and even managed to miss a huge oil tanker or something of the sort, which I'm pretty sure they were just aiming for on purpose to give Patsy a scare who was sitting on the bow calling trim.
But we were finally off and settled into mid fleet per usual. A few days in however, we, yes, we, Visit Seattle, were in first place! Holla! The whole crew was extremely ecstatic. The only problem was that we were within miles of all the other boats, but nonetheless, we were enjoying our first place spot! Up to this point, besides the tack, tack, tack to get out of Albany, we were just sailing on the same tack so we didn't have to worry about losing ground during an evolution and were just focusing on trim. I guess at one point, we came up to Garmin and sailed right past them! I was off watch but the on watch said it was as if they didn't see us coming and when they did, they only just started to make a move to adjust their speed but it was too late at that point. Go us!
Later in the week, we were getting easterly winds, which meant we had to sail directly upwind to go east to where we had to round around Tasmania. However, the winds were also quite strong and the weather guy happened to forget to mention there would be a storm in the forecast as well. These things put together, mean we can only sail with minimal sails up, so reef three and our storm jib, aka. yankee four and therefore could basically only go directly north or south, not east where our destination was. So in order to make it to Tasmania, we have to keep tacking north and south and slowly make our way east. During these tactical decisions, we were still close with the other boats tacking back and forth but at one point, the other boats all went north and we continued south, separating from the fleet and losing our first place position unfortunately. We knew it wouldn't last, but were hoping to stay with the front runners for a bit longer.
At this point, we are now in ninth position and the furthest boat south. We are even more south then we were in leg three. We were wondering if the race office was going to call us at a certain point to warn us that they didn't give us a virtual beach for this leg, but we still need to not sail to Antartica! Lucky for us, the wind has FINALLY started backing and we are getting the winds that were forecasted days ago. Now we can make our way back north to Tasmania and then on to Sydney. We'll see how the next days go, but hopefully we can make up some ground and catch up with the rest of the fleet in the front again!
On another note, I was mother today with Jesse. I tend to have less time to write on the boat now and only find time during my mother watch when I can stay up a bit later since I get to sleep the night through. But as it is now December 8th (Happy Birthday Bol!), and for those of you that know me, that means Holiday music 24/7 starting the day after Halloween. I have yet to listen to any Holiday music, but since I get to pick the music when I am mother, it was a full day of Holiday tunes! Some hated me and some loved it! Luckily Jesse enjoyed it, otherwise, I may have been on mother duty by myself the rest of the day. I warned Jan about it previously, who definitely is not a fan, but the first song he heard when he came down for lunch was apparently one of the ones he liked, so basically that means he really likes holiday music and doesn't realize it yet. However, as my watch went down to sleep, the dog barking Jingle bells song came on, which Jan happened to catch...I can't help what Spotify puts on their playlists! You have to take the good with the bad!
For dinner, we made Chorizo stew with rice since we have a few crew mates who do not eat cous cous. For some reason only certain people know how to work the rice cooker. I am not one of them, nor is Karri, which Jan so bluntly pointed out one night during dinner. Since then, I've been afraid to serve rice with my meals. But tonight, Jesse and I decided to go for it. I think our first mistake is that we thought it would only take 20 minutes, but apparently, it takes at least 30, but closer to 45 minutes to cook. The other issue is that the measurements are in grams, but we have no damn scale on the boat! I don't know how people cook using grams, just use cups like normal people! :) So after a debate with some fellow crew about what measurements to use, we set the cooker to cook and when we checked the rice after it beeped it was not even close to being done. Safe to say, dinner was slightly delayed tonight and then by the time my watch came back down to eat it was over cooked! So, yes, I am now on the list of not knowing how to use the darn rice cooker!
Along with the holiday tunes and getting closer to the Holidays, we have started discussing each of our family traditions over the holidays. Everyone has something special they do with their families and most of us will be missing our families this holiday season but we will try to do some of our holiday traditions with our new Clipper family. For instance, I plan to have a movie night to watch A Christmas Story with my crew mates and hopefully make almond rocha if my sister is nice enough to share the family secret recipe with me to make it!
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We are now rounding Tasmania and are back in mid-fleet position. Ichorcoal and Qingdao are hot on our heels. We, of course, in true Visit Seattle style, have found a wind hole and are trying to escape it to finish the final days of the race up to Sydney and hopefully come in fifth position.
I hear we have a photo shoot scheduled with our Sponsorship Visit Seattle with some Seahawks gear...all my Seattle friends will probably be quite jealous of this! I'll be interested to see what it actually entails, but Patsy says we all have to be groomed before we are allowed to participate, which is probably an excellent idea since most of us have been living on a boat for about three and half months now...standards are very low!
Hopefully the wind picks up soon and we somehow manage to overtake the front runners and smash into a podium finish! But, that isn't realistic at this point unless they hit a wind hole themselves that we do not. Then we will finally be in Sydney for a much needed long two week break! The break will be filled with lots of maintenance and repair of the boat but we are hoping for a good few solid days off and we do officially all get Christmas off! So here is to some good wind coming our way!
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Sadly, as you all witnessed that wind hole didn't leave us and we were overtaken by Qingdao and eventually Unicef. We ended the race in 7th position which is still quite good for our team! We are now in 9th position in the overall standings and close behind Ichorcoal and DaNang...so beware, we are coming for you!
I didn't really take any pictures this past leg, I just have this to show off our first place position during the race...
I think Chris took some good photos on the boat, so I'll have to see if I can steal some from him to upload later. I think he even got a video of a wave splashing over me! Fun stuff!
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