Day 2: A new day, new challenges

It’s a new day with new challenges. The crew are doing their shifts. Mike, Peter, and Shaun are now suffering from early voyage sea sickness. Sean P has a very mild case, the result of working on the foredeck in some rather bumpy sea. Fortunately, most are coping better than previous trips, I have been on with them. But that’s not going to stop us from achieving our goal. Bring on the heat, bring on the waves and bring on the challenges because we’re ready for everything to be thrown our way.

I came on at midnight for my shift till 3am. I was on with Mark and Mike and took over from the two Shaun’s and Richard. The idea was that everyone was to helm for an hour. We had force 5 winds 20 to 25kts with the occasional gust to 30 knots. The sea was choppy with a cross chop making it difficult to steer in a consistent line. Surfing down some of the waves was exhilarating in the pitch dark and we were reaching speeds of 15 to 18 knots at times.

After an hour at the helm I get rather tired from the concentration and swap. We are flying along on our course of 315 degrees and are excited by our progress over the night. I take a break after my shift and try to catch some shut eye. I’m up again at about 7AM and we are still doing well. Everyone slowly surfaces and I helm for an hour and a half. It is very difficult to write the blog as the boat is bumping around quite a lot and I don’t have my sea legs yet.

Up on deck it is easier to move around. I am quite comfortable down below and am not feeling sea sick at all. Some of the other guys are battling a bit. I take out a bag of lamb pieces for dinner and in the afternoon Mark decides to make a lamb stew with everything in it. Everyone eats late afternoon, except Peter who is battling more than others with the sea sickness. I finally go to rest at about 8pm as I am on shift again at 12 to 3am.

We are all happy with our progress and course. We have done somewhere in the region of 260nm in the first 24 hours and are maintaining the pace rather well. Unbeknown to us during the previous day Shaun had flown from the navigation station into the stove, suffering a severe bruise to his left buttock. It happened when we took down the A sail. He had not said anything at the time, even when I notice him sitting quietly obviously recovering and asked him if he was feeling sick – he had just said “No, I am fine”.

Quote of the day: “Sailing requires the management of all the systems on the boat, plus all the controls on the boat, while assessing the weather and navigation. It’s planning everything to a fine level of detail and making the required adjustments all at the same time as things are changing”