reaching for home....

After a full 20 minutes sleep I decided to brave the elements and go and steer for a while, as i climbed into the cockpit i got another wave on the head, i thought again about my plan and decided to make a few tweaks to the set up and head back down. If I have learned one thing this week it is know when to push and when to chill. I think getting wet and cold for what may well only be 1/3rd of a kt better boatspeed may be false economy, at least that what i told myself.

As the day has progressed the wind ha stuck around at about 17-20kts giving some good reaching conditions and decent boatspeed in the right direction for minimum effort, which is always satisfying.

As the main aim of this race was to get some serious solo miles under my belt and qualify me for the OSTAR it has been a great surprise to be up with the big boys. It it hard for me to get the whole picture (as I am on a boat in the ocean and not on the computer!) exactly how the field lies but as understand it I am currently in 3rd place overall corrected time (for non sailors each boat has a handicap rating so that it doesn't just become about buying simply buying a faster boat. your actual elapsed time is then times by the handicap factor to work out the corrected time), and as the 2 leading boats are both 2 handed I think that puts me as first solo. However i wont think about that until i have crossed the finish line! It has also come to my attention that at my current eta I will break the '40ft and under solo fixed ballast' record by over 24 hours! The current record has stood since 1999! I know to non sailors that sounds like a sub division of a sub division of a sub division but to me that is pretty big! I have thumbed through the race magazine and that looks correct however there is the slight matter of getting to the finish line, which is still over 14hrs away hours, and a few shipping lanes away. There is also one other reason I have found to push it and that is that if i can do it in a little over 14 hours I may crack 7 days, although that is a tall order! There is also of course the slight possibility that having been awake so long I am complete delusional and none of the above is true at all.

 

Its about dinner time now so i think i will boil the kettle and prepare some more freeze dried food. Yummm!!