Before I go further I would like to express our sorrow and support for the Telefonica Black and Ericsson 3 teams who have both broken and headed for shelter. Hopefully, all can be mended quickly so they can safely deliver up to Qingdao. I really feel bad for all of them.
As far as this little adventure, we survived our second gale off of the North end of the Philippines and then actually had about 12 hours of reasonable sailing conditions after that as we were sailing down the east side of Taiwan. It was the first time all leg we weren't going upwind. Capey picked a nice route that took us well outside of Taiwan and stayed in east/southeast breezes. We literally made up 100 miles in the course of half a day. But, all good things must come to an end, and beginning last night around midnight, we started planning for our next gale- which we are in the middle of as we speak.
Break out the storm jib and three reefs one more time...can't get enough of that really fun sail combination...yea right.
It really isn't the wind that wears you out- it's the waves. Having to slow the boat down by any means possible is an unnatural act to begin with. We weren't very good at it to start with but we have now had plenty of practice and we are getting better and better at going slow all the time.
Sounds pretty strange that I would even be writing this but in these conditions you have to slow down our you will break the boat. It is the unmerciful pounding on each wave. It simply wears you down, and is almost always the reason these boats break.
We were just talking as a group down below during a watch change- when was the last time you had to use a storm jib for real? Most of us could remember, especially the guys who sailed the stormy summer aboard "Rambler" a couple years back. The second question, did anyone ever have to use storm jib three separate times in a leg or race? The answer was absolutely no. This is a first for all of us.
There may be a light at the end of this storm tunnel though. Lighter winds that may shift toward the southeast which could help us get in to Qingdao reaching and maybe running, which could be huge since the temperatures are supposedly going to plummet to below freezing soon. Oh joy.
With all this said, the mood aboard is still terrific. Just need to hang in there for the next few hours out. Oh yea, and the 500 or so miles to the finish after that as well.
-Kenny
