Written 11 February 2014, at sea The day after the pirate escapade, we were still determined to race. The finish line of Race 8A was now finally within our sights and we had decent wind that, for once, was not coming from where we needed to go. In the morning the distant sail of GB…

Written 9 February 2014, at sea Being woken up is a fact of life when working in a watch system. So no-one minds. It is also the responsibility of the watch on duty to wake all the members of the oncoming watch, their reliefs. The best way is to say their name. If no response,…

Written 7 February 2014, at sea Andy – this explains why we were going the wrong way. “All hands on deck, wearing pirate shirts.” I was just on the way to fetch mine, as I was due to come on watch for an evening watch. The pirate shirt is our long-sleeved dark blue Ocean Crusaders…

Written 3 February 2014, at sea I was at the helm. It was one of my first attempts at helming with a spinnaker up and I was starting to get the hang of it. When at the helm, you’re supposed to concentrate on that to the exclusion of all else. But it was hard to…

Written 1 February 2014, at sea Today it is the hottest it’s been yet.  Usually being on deck is fairly pleasant, even though below decks can be known as a sweatbox. Today is different though. This morning’s watch had us breaking in to a sweat just sitting down. Bits of the deck were too hot…