Race two and leg 2!

Watch leading, victualling and falling in love with sailing

So the first leg was a feat of endurance, 8 days, then a quick break in Portugal followed by 28 days at sea, crossing the north and south Atlantic oceans on the way to Uruguay. We had huge seas in the bay of Biscay, followed by the inferno and total calm of the doldrums. Generally people got very grouchy in the heat (and mild hanger was common too) and the first half of the race seemed to pass very slowly. The second half brought better wind, we sailed well and caught up a lot of lost time. The most amazing part of the race for me was the last 48 hours before arriving into Punta, when we battled with Seattle in an amazing storm. Huge dark black storm clouds looked overhead with flashes of lightning that lit up the whole sky for seconds at a time, some even hit the water near the boat making it steam!

Unfortunately we came out of the storm behind Seattle, and even one of our most determined crew (who’s wife is on Seattle) couldn’t overtake them before the finish, so we came 8th overall- a great improvement on the first race!

The stopover in Punta was lovely, the weather unfortunately wasn’t great, it was windy and cold most days and as it was out of season the resort was very quiet, nonetheless it was relaxing until victualling began.

This was a big old task, involving three trips to the large out of town supermarket, which delivered our food on the last day at 2 pm, leaving the packing job a bit rushed! This is where you take all the food for each day and put it together in a dry bag, then store it on the boat somewhere (and try remember to write it down so that you can find it again!)

The fruit and veg was delivered the day of the race start, 400 apples, 200 bananas, 200 mandarins all to be stored on the boat in netting under a bunk. The scale of the food for 24 people for 21 days was immense!

Food packed, goodbyes made and off we set for leg 2, the South Atlantic. The race was to be fast and furious, the shortest leg and an introduction to big wave, downwind surfing and some big southern ocean style weather systems. We made it to 43 degrees south- the wind there is bitterly cold, making the challenge of the night watch to see how many clothes you can wear whilst still being able to bend your arms and legs! We had some big storms, 45 knots of wind with gusts to 70knots (although our boats’ recorded max wind speed was 321 knots- for a while we had 260-300knots of wind according to our brand new instruments which were clearly working well 🙈

The waves were huge and for a few days we were heading into the waves- think crashing a car into a barrier every few seconds and the whole boat vibrates and booms around you. The eerie silence and weightless feeling in your stomach as the boat goes off the edge of a wave and becomes temporarily air borne, before crashing into the next wave along!

Once the wind came around and started to be on a beam/ behind us, the fun began! Helming the boat down some huge 8m rolling waves was very exciting- it feels like the top of a roller coaster as the wave starts to pick up the boat, the nose tips forward and you tip forward before accelerating rapidly and then try hold the wheel straight to surf the wave. Just like on a very large surf board on a very large wave!

After a while 16 knots seems slow, too speeds were up to 21.6 knots (my personal record was 20.5 😀)

We had an awesome time on leg 2 and hopefully a taster of the next leg 3- the mighty Southern Ocean “sleigh ride”.

The stopover has been all too brief, we managed some sightseeing and lots of tasting of good wine and food 😀

The victualling took longer than ideal, hence why I’m writing this in a rush once again on the morning of race start! Hopefully I will get more organised and write the blog for leg 3 with more time (unlikely).

Over and out!