We finished in 7th place after race One, which was such a huge disappointment after battling so hard to maintain our boat speed all through Race One. We had a few disasters along the way and had always managed to regain our standing until the lottery that was the windhole.
In Sir Robin’s words “The Race turned to custard at the end!”
Anyway I now find myself sitting in bed for the last time before we set off again to sail 5200nmiles to Punta Del Este in Uruguay. It has been a lovely week here in Portimao, very boat focused with lots of jobs to do fixing the sails where they had been damaged in the last race, milking and rewhipping the lines, working out wha the problem with the batteries is, they keep discharging for no apparent reason. These have been replaced but the worry is we don’t know why. Was it just a dodgy cell or is there an underlying problem. Loads more jobs to do, restocking the victuals (food) buying hundreds of toilet rolls, refueling etc etc etc.
We also made time in Portimao to sample the local food and wine, it was important to get at least a months worth of eating and drinking all crammed into just a few days 🙂 The delicious seafood at Dona Barca was a hit for our crew meal out. Ferry arranged it and her fun prizgiving was tremendous, I was honored to be presented with 2 sticks of candy rock for being ‘The Rock’ for our team.
It is now time to get packed up and on our way again, I spent yesterday after the crew brief packing up my stuff back into the little plastic bags and then into drybags ready to go. I then cooked lasagne for 20 so this evening after we start racing there is a hot meal prepared.
Race starts at 16.00 local time (15.00 utc) and you can follow the race and watch Race start live via the Clipper Round the world web page.
https://www.clipperroundtheworld.com/race/standings
Dream It Now Do It 