Message From nicole

Things are looking a bit better now. The wind has picked up and we are back to some nice downwind sailing. We rounded the bottom of Japan last night, and now have begun our Pacific crossing. It is also warming up slowly and I have been able to shed a layer or two in the daytime (though there are still a fair few left to go before we get to the nice t-shirt and shorts sailing). I am definitely more into warm weather sailing. It is such a pfaff putting on 3 base layers, a mid layer, oilies, gloves, hat, balaclava etc, and even wearing all of that I felt like my hands were going to fall off early yesterday morning when we were doing a few manouvers. We are quite short handed this leg, so I have been doing jobs all over the boat - helming, snake pit and even on the bow.... I had my first experience as the no. 1 when hanking on the sail - though perhaps it is pretty sad to admit to that having sailed so far! xx

Message From nicole

The story of the race start across the Pacific...
We set off to fireworks, cheering crowds and a media scrum surrounding us. There were 10 boats out there, but 9 were ignored as the media boats all jostled to get shots of QIngdao, the home boat. The race start was in light winds. I was a little worried at one point that we would hit the line to soon, but we depowered to slow ourselves, and got a great start as first over the line (lets hope that we didn't offend the locals by being last in and first out!). So we raced hard in the light winds, until it dropped so much that our progress was entirely due to the tide. This wasn't so bad until 6 hours later when the tide turned and we started to drift back towards Qingdao. Depressingly the anchor had to come out. You may think that things couldn't get much worse than sitting out in the cold, anchored with the lights of the city still clearly in sight. But it could and it did. It rarely snows in Qingdao and it rarely snows at sea, but down the snow came. We made a little snowman and threw a few snowballs, but it wasn't the most pleasant 4 hours of my life! Things are looking up a bit now; we are moving, which is good and even in the right direction. We've scraped the two inches of snow off the deck, and in a minute I am going to get into my sleeping bag, with my hot water bottle and blanket, and try and warm up!

China

So we arrived in China to a massive welcome. Big event, camera's everywhere. Posters of all the skippers all over town... As the Chinese boat we are currently minor celebs. Banquets every night. Lots of work to do on the boat and lots of corporate days - not sure when I am supposed to sleep.... There was a massive prive giving event, with lots of acts from Qingdao and from Beijing - we then made the front page of the paper the next day! All a little surreal.

We have now pretty much made it half way around the world, which is really cool. The next race will be tough though - a long way (maybe 5000 nm), and really cold at the beginning - though I have just bought a hot water bottle to help! Apparently though the Pacific is an amazing ocean. We shall see... We have a little self respect to make up after our last few performances!

Message From nicole

The race ended this morning as we have run out of time to sail all of the way to Qingdao, and we are now motoring the final 500 miles. I think that this has been the toughest race so far, and everyone was pretty excited when the engine came on! The conditions have been tough, with strong winds, big waves and very hot, very cold and very wet weather. This made life above decks even harder work, and the heeling of the boat from beating into the wind makes life below decks a constant series of press ups (and in my case constant stumbling around)! Beating (sailing upwind) continuously is also pretty demoralising. As although you may be working hard and sailing fast, because you can't sail in a straight line, you may only end up wih a 12 hour run of 50 miles towards the target (compared to maybe 130 miles on a good day). We've also had some other challenges to deal with, with illness tha made us divert towards the Philippines in case we needed to drop the casualty off, and a semi man over board - where somone went over the side, but remained clipped on with his strop. In that situation though, it was quite comforting to see how quickly we got him back on board, and how well everyone worked together. So a tough leg, but with some good times - which I will remember better when firmly on land..... We are now awaiting a warm welcome, and some nice cold beers! xx

Message From nicole

Things are pretty hairy at the moment.Big waves and wind have meant that we have had to get the storm sails out. Helming at night is pretty scary, as it is pitch black- no moon or stars at all, - and all of those big waves that are lurking out there in the dark! The weather has also make a huge u turn, and moved from the tropics to winter over night. The thermals are out and we are all counting down the number of cold night shifts that we have to endure!

Message From nicole

If you thought that the yachty life was glamourous then think again.... The true glamour of ocean racing hit me yesterday as i had my head down a bilge trying to empty it of diesel, & then got down on my hands & knees to scrub diesel off the floorboards (it is v slippy). The weather has got gnarly again now. Last night we had 35 knots of wind & 4m swell- it was pretty crazy helming down those waves, especially in the pitch dark when you can't see them!

Message From nicole

We battle on upwind towards our first waypoint of Taiwan. Progress in the right direction is slow and although we are sailin well we still lie in 10th position. Life is fairly tough on board, with the boat heeling over, the waves crashing over the bow, and the sauna-like conditions below making sleep very difficult. The bouncing boat has also left me with a very large bruise following an incident in the head (toilet)! But there is entertainment on board. Yesterday the boys decided that they had had enough of wet clothes from the waves coming over the bow, and did a sail change in their pants. It was pretty hard to concentrate on helming as they stripped off beside me and went off to unhank the sail! We have also been entertained by birds sweeping through the sky to feast on the flying fish, whilst the stargazing at night has become more familiar again as the northern hemisphere stars come back into view.xx