Sunday 8th March
Position 43'21.769S 124'06.629W
Wind 24.5 Knots 235 Degrees
COG 81 Degrees SOG 10.2 Knots
Distance Sailed 2,886 Nautical Miles
Dear Friends,
All is well on the good ship Mowgli as we punch our way through the first southern ocean storm of this leg. Today has been a beautiful bright sunny day with some nasty little squalls thrown in just to keep us on our toes - very heavy rain and hailstones with gusty winds. The seas have built up to a fair degree and while they don't pose any problem for us we do get side-swiped by a few which knocks things around a bit inside. I mean even our bacon and eggs ended up in a cupboard this morning!!
For the most part though we have been taking the opportunity to get some much needed sleep after the race to the scoring gate yesterday. It is amazing how well you can sleep when being bounced and thrown around inside a little boat. Even when we have quite serious broaches and knocks, it doesn't really disturb whoever is asleep at the time. The autopilot has been handling everything well with the brief exception of a couple of hours ago when it suddenly stopped working altogether. One little loose connection later and we were back in the relative warmth down below.
I am not convinced however that our wind instrument is giving the right readings. This is the one that arrived on the dock in Wellington just as we were preparing the depart and we haven't had the chance to calibrate it properly in stronger winds - and now with the original unit not working we're not going to get the chance! Reading Ollie Dewar's excellent daily reports suggests that the other boats in the fleet have much more wind than us - which of course doesn't make sense as we are sandwiched between them! We are reading an average of around 25 knots with gusts up to 35 but it is certainly much more than that. Still the sea state is no where near what we saw in the last leg and we are sailing smoothly, without being too overpowered for the most part, with much more sail up than we had in steady 40 knots of wind then.
Apart from the slightly disastrous attempt at bacon and eggs this morning (they were delicious but was all a bit of a drama!) we haven't been good at cooking much for the last two or three days. One of us has always been on the helm until today when one of us is always asleep! So having our daily cooked dinner together just hasn't been working. I finally resorted to some freeze dried cod and potatoes from Norway tonight and the storm should be passed by tomorrow. So then maybe we might have that bottle of champagne and some real food.
Lots of love to all.
Jeremy and David
Saturday 7th March
Position 43'43.915S 130'55.623W
Wind 245 Deg 21.8 Knots
COG 92 Deg SOG 13.8 Knots
Distance Sailed 2,633 Nautical Miles
Dear Friends,
This is quite incredible. As the three boats in the double handed class race towards the scoring gate there is just over 2 miles on a distance to finish basis between the boats with ourselves just in the lead. However on an east-west basis Beluga is out in front by just over 5 miles and with under 40 miles to the gate it now looks unlikely that we are going to be able to catch them. A well deserved hat trick for them!
We have been pushing hard for the last 24 hours and have pretty consistently been the fastest boat in the fleet, making up over 18 miles on the leaders - in part because of our decision to gybe eastwards earlier than the others. We are all trying to get a bit north to avoid the worst of the low pressure system to our south but the lure of points has driven us all towards the gate earlier than we might have done otherwise. We took the decision early and have reaped some of the reward for that - at this stage!
We have been helming non stop for most of the last 36 hours and for the last 6 hours or so have been one hour on, one hour off. We are pretty tired but fired up and looking forward to being able to take the foot off the gas a little once the scoring gate is past. We might even crack one of our little bottles of champagne - if our position merits it!
Top speed today 20.35 knots!
Happy days..
Love to all.
Jeremy and David
Friday 6th March
Position 44'43.848S 136'55.414W
Wind 285 Degrees 18.5 Knots
COG 122 Degrees SOG 10.1 Knots
Distance Sailed 2,347 Nautical Miles
Dear Friends,
In the zig-zag world of gybing between the ice gate to the south and high pressure systems to the north we were unlucky last night when the new wind came in to be caught on a northerly zag whilst the rest of the fleet, already to our north, were zigging away eastwards. This cost us not only our brief spot at the top of the leaderboard but 12 miles which we are still trying to make up.
The winds have been good to us today with 15 knots rising 24 and boat speed topping out at nearly 17 knots. The swell has been moderate and the sailing swell!
We had a major failure with our autopilot computer systems last night which took a long time to resolve. David was helming in the dark without any instrumentation and Jeremy was busy running new wires around down below and trying to get to the bottom of the problem. There are five independent display units, each one of them a computer in its own right and we had to isolate them all and then try to work out where the problem lay. NKE in France were on the phone and Giovanni, who had helped us so much in Cape Town, was at the end of emails and between us all we eventually managed to get the systems up and running again. It seems that one of the display units, perhaps together with one of the wind instruments, had developed a fault and once they were all replaced and re-programmed we could get going again.
At the same time, the metal ring on the tack of the mainsail broke and we needed to get that lashed down too. Not a major problem and we will leave proper repairs until Brazil.
An eventful night!
Hope all well at home.
Love to all.
Jeremy and David
Monday 2nd March
Position 44'42.644S 148'37.741W
Wind 335 Degrees 4.2 Knots
COG 84.2 Degrees SOG 3.1 Knots
Distance Sailed 1,769 Nautical Miles
Dear Friends,
We have had a frustrating couple of days with light and very shifty winds as we have worked out way southwards towards the 45' south limit. Having been trying to be the most northerly boat in the fleet for a few days it has been our intention to be the most southerly as we got into the current high pressure system. It was a battle getting there but one which is ever so slowly paying off for us. The 20 mile lead that the Chileans gained over us has now been eroded to just 3 miles.
We now have the new wind - of sorts - and have gybed back onto port but the wind is still very unsettled in both direction and speed. Anything from 4 to 15 knots with a direction of 300 degrees to 10 degrees! Doesn't make trimming the sails or keeping to your course very easy...
Looking out from here the weather looks equally unsettled with a small front and low pressure system coming our way in the next day or so which will give us quite strong headwinds for a time. There will be a real risk of being headed southwards towards the no-go area with the unpalatable alternative of a very northerly tack. We're on a bit of a tightrope and it all depends on exactly where all these systems move.
With the southerly winds of the last few days things have become much cooler and the sea temperature has also dropped by over 5 degrees to a little below 15 degrees. Still much warmer than the 6 degrees we had on the last leg and what we will find towards Cape Horn!
We hope everyone at home is enjoying the close match racing as much as we are. It is pretty incredible to have the whole fleet so close together after the best part of 2,000 miles of racing.
Love to all.
Jeremy and David
Sunday 1st March
Position 44'02.097S 156'11.853W
Wind 170 Degrees 10.1 Knots
COG 91.5 Degrees SOG 8.2 Knots
Distance Sailed 1,427 Nautical Miles
We have now been at sea for a little over a week since our departure from Wellington and it all seems a distant memory. Despite some frustrations with light winds for a day or so, overall we have had some of the best sailing of this race so far - and not only because we find ourselves (for the time being) at the front of the pack!
Those Red Hot Chilli Peppers are hot on our heels and have been visible right behind us for most of today - so much so that we had to speak to Felipe on the phone and ask him to stop following us! For some reason we are unable to hear each other over the VHF even though we could all hear each other speaking to Michel the other day so clearly. Those Germans on Beluga Racer have steadily made their way northwards to join with us in what is now going to be a drag race to the scoring gate some 1,100 miles to our east - and then for a further 1,200 miles to the eastern end of the ice gate before tactics will once again come into play before Cape Horn.
We are all going to be squeezed into a narrow corridor not more than 60 miles wide between the ice gate at 45' south and the light wind zones in the high pressure systems passing to our north. There will be little room for tactical manouevering and it will all come down to constant attention to boat speed and making sure we don't make any mistakes. I am sure we will see many changes in the leaderboard over the next few days...
Love to all.
Jeremy and David