RACE 12 - DAY 5 SKIPPER REPORT

Today has been the calm after what was some really great sailing - a huge area of no wind in a part of the world where accurate and forecasting are words not often used together.

Arriving at the giant windless area Qingdao, Unicef and Zhuhai were the slightly further north boats. We decided to enter into the area further north so as to try to stay in the breeze for longer but this did not cut the distance down very much. It was odd to see that the current was going a different way to the predictions too. This was a first observation of this for me and it left us sailing on tacks making literally no forward progress to the mark because of the adverse current.

Watching a race you have put together in your mind and then mostly executed is so frustrating. It is akin to a craftsman building a beautiful timber framed building only to see a tornado coming along and threatening the hard work and dedication.

Unicef has been with us throughout the whole windless adventure and we have been tussling to see who could go the least backwards for the past 12 hrs. Despite problems at the start, Unicef had carried out some great strategy of staying on the left and splitting some shallow water patches in order to gain more current on the way north. That was a really nice idea. They've done a great job sailing so well for the first part of the race where there was wind. As I write we are getting to an area of...

Continued:

Sorry about that guys, I had nipped up on deck as we were in need of a quick tack. The wind that had recently jumped from 4 to 17kts had completely changed direction. Unicef has tacked and is now going twice as fast but at a very different angle so it will be interesting to see how this one plays out. I'd hoped for a slightly more northerly breeze along the shore which it seems we have, but I hadn't factored in that it would be so light.

It's all very interesting with all these changes in direction but now I will leave you from the ramblings of someone that really needs some sleep. It's 1am here and I have been awake in the hot sun for longer than I should have been and last night was quite exciting too. So I'm looking forward to some sleep now :)

Personal shout outs:

Big thank you to my dad for following and for helping me out today - thanks dad for that. Thanks to all the people helping with the boats including Qingdao crew member Ed, my Auntie Alison and of course Katie x