During the early part of the night I kept good boatspeed and was within 3 miles of the class leaders, I knew the wind was going to come further east during the night and waited for the right time to hoist the secret weapon, aka the code zero. It is not often that the code zero works (a spinnaker cut vey flat that can be used to go upwind given the right conditions) but I knew the time had come to give it go and so about 3 am this morning I ran around and got the boat ready. An hour after I hoisted it, it started to pay off, all the hassle that comes with it was worth it I began to eat into the gap between the leaders and myself. I could see there mast head lights out to the left and slowly one by one the white lights of their sterns became the greens of their right sides- I had caught them up and then slowly crept ahead. Sleeping for 20 minutes then going on deck to tweek the sails repeating the routine many times. Every time I came on deck I had increased the lead slightly.
The sun is now shining bright in the sky, a boat called Ding Dong- sailed by a seasoned pro and which started 10 minutes before me (and is a faster boat) is 1.5 miles to my right and Taika, the class winner of the outbound leg is behind me at 2.5 miles and Jbellino is in sight.
So far so good. The battle now is to keep this position!
Go Sam, go Sam! Way to go bruv, what a clever brother you are. Fingers crossed things go your way and you can keep it up xx
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