It’s been a crazy night, I hope it’s the last one in this leg. The wind picked up and shifted so much that we ended up sailing against the waves at 20 knots speed, jumping all the time.
It seemed like everything was going to break into pieces. One of the hatches was blown away and inside the boat the only safe spot was the bunk, squeezed against the hull because otherwise, when the boat jumped, you could get thrown anywhere in the boat.
We would have loved to have made more gains but handling the boat really wasn’t easy. Bowmen have to get out of the cockpit and a wave can easily knock them down, so every minute you have to consider the risks you take and this was last night’s pattern. It’s been like this for the last three days really, and never before since we left Alicante.
We tacked and are on port tack now, the much expected shift finally kicked in and after the hight pressure we are now almost heading home.
The dice has rolled. Now it’s down to a high-speed race for the last few miles, while we wait for a right wind shift to sail on starboard tack again.
There are 750 miles left, around three days, and we are further west than anybody else, so the last shift’s favoured us, but the next won’t.
The boat in front always plays with advantage, but as we are close to land, there are a lot of thermal effects influencing the wind and there’s room for short term strategies.
Let’s see what happens, we are anxious to finish, it’s a tough leg, mainly because it’s been the first really rough one and we suffered under lack of training, but we are all safe and sound, and the boat is performing at 100% of her capacity.
Today we started taking off some layers of clothing. Temperature’s changed and from now on it’ll be more confortable. We’ll be able to rest a bit.
I’m going to lie down for a bit, I have to be back at the wheel in a few hours.
¡Vamos “MAPFRE”!
Iker