Delta Lloyd Leg Two Day 6 QFB: received 20.11.08 1826 GMT
The story remains the same: More fast sailing. We just gybed and are heading north towards India. We’ve successfully hitched a ride onto another low pressure system. The sea state is relatively calm, considering the wind speed is in the mid 20’s. We have our favourite sails up: the fractional zero and a reef in our main. Every ounce of weight in the boat is stacked in the most extreme aft position on the boat, to keep the trim of the bow…and the speed… up. With small waves the boat can sit on 23-26 knots of boat speed for minutes at a time, since we aren’t surfing down and then crashing into waves in front of us.
I’ve spent a lot of time strategising over the past few days on positioning ourselves correctly on this new course. We made the decision 2 days ago to ignore the mid-course scoring gate positioning. We want to get to India. And we want to get there in good standing. That is our focus. The boys are pushing the boat hard. Really hard. And we are catching the boats in front of us. After a tough start to the leg, we are crawling our way back. We’ve passed Telefónica Black and the Russians this afternoon. Telefónica Blue and Green Dragon are just miles away and we are closing quickly.
Matt Gregory – navigator