Christ it’s hot! I’m sitting below deck tapping this out in murderous temperatures as we continue to make good speed towards St Lucia. At 11h00 today we are a mere 350 miles from destination and still on course to finish by Saturday morning. The last 24 hours have been pretty tough, partly because we put our clocks back by 3 hours making the night just that bit longer!
But first the good news. For reasons I am not completely familiar with, it turns out that Lancelot is currently leading the entire racing class, not just her division as we had previously believed! We are currently a mere two hours ahead of our closest rival, a thirty year old 30 odd footer! I found this quite strange as leading off we were surrounded by large and impressive looking yachts. But that’s the vagaries of the handicap system for you.
We had been sailing without spinnaker for the last 24 hours, but this morning it has gone up again as we seek to ensure that first place is cemented down. As I write this I am conscious of the potential for a breach to send me and the laptop leftwards into the sink so this might be a brief update! Saying that the familiar whirring sound as Lancelot steams forward on a suirf reassures me that my watch are doing their usual efficient job! I will be up there soon myself.
I think now we all want to finish. It has been a long trip and emotions are beginning to get frayed. Last night an unfortunate member of the crew (not me, I hasten to add) had the misfortune to get the box of matches wet making watch changeover tea and coffee. Instead of owning up to the deed, our unfortunate kept quiet for some reason leading to predictable and understandable consternation from Lancelot’s mate, Mick, and producing a lecture on the Ps and Qs of galley management. All pretty much sensible stuff, but perhaps a tad late on the dawn of our 19th day. Confronted at dawn with the misdeamour a tense standoff was to be witnessed, so I jumped in and tried sorting out drying for the bedraggled matches – which let’s face it shouldn’t take too long in this heat.
Thankfully breakfast tea and coffee was rescued by our two ardent smokers and their lighters, smoking may well indeed harm your health but in this case it spared us two days’ worth of cold baked beans! Anyway, all seems quiet so fingers crossed we cross the finish line in one piece, physically and emotionally – and in first place!
On that note I’m going to quit while I’m ahead breaching wise!
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