Message From nicole

Stuck in a windhole again, it is all depressingly familiar.... After a few days of hard sailing, where we managed to fight off the opposition, the wind has gone AWOL & the whole fleet is bunched up into a few miles. We have sadly dropped back & it looks like race could go to whoever gets the wind first. There is something that is eerily beautiful about a flat calm ocean, so calm that it reflects the stars; but I would quite like to get to New York!

Message From nicole

We are now more than a third of the way to New York, the weather is cooling off,& as ever, a downwind race is upwind! We are currently leading the pack &it is all incredibly stressfull. We can see 5 boats, ranging from 1-5 miles behind us, so every sail change has to be the best one ever, &you can sit for hours seeing them slowly creep up on you, constantly thinking, what are they doing that we're not! We cross our fingers, but there's a long way to go yet

Message From nicole

It's a bit wet & windy! After a few legs where I managed not to bruise myself too much, I am now maxing them out. Some nice rings around my legs from hanging around at the top of the mast. Then today, we had another nightmare. Trying to hank on the no3, & feeling very unstable, I suddenly see the head of the sail launch itself over the side. I lept after it but it was too late & the whole sail unfurled itself into the sea. So we dragged it back in, as the waves threw me around (& kept throwing me down onto a very large cleat, that I was slightly scared would end up somewhere very unconfortable). Then after untangling myself from a pile of sail, we managed to get it on & head back to the relative safety of aft of the boat. But as I headed back a huge wave picked me up, but instead of washing me down the deck, it slammed me straight into the shrouds. Now that hurt & a very large bruise is developing nicely!<

Message From nicole

Yesterday we went through the Panama Canal & crossed from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic. It really feels like we are on the way home now.... The Canal was cool. Some very large locks, connected by a river & lakes, & all just powered by gravity. I filmed the first lock transit from the top of the mast, which gave me a great view, though a number of bruises! Sadly it also rained all day, though we managed to take advantage of Liverpools rain shelter, cunningly made out of their storm jib, whilst waiting for the next lock! We started the race to Jamaica a couple of hours ago, but got off to a shocking start, which was followed up by a fairly shocking sail change- so I think that we are now in last place (again). The weather is also shocking. Huge squalls carrying lots of rain -& I mean lots of rain- & wind that can't quite decide what it is doing. But it is just a short hop, with less than 450 miles to go.<

Message From nicole

We motor on to Panama, which is a little dull, though gives you a bit of time to catch up on some sunbathing & reading, as well as getting most of the boat jobs out of the way. We have just made a short re-fuelling pit stop in Costa Rica. The coastline was covered in beautiful rain forest, though sadly it was dark when we arrived, so we couldn't really see the bay area, though, the fresh fruit, ice cream & beer we were given, more than made up for it!

Message From nicole

An exciting end to the race. Nova Scotia had just pipped us to the first gate, and we spent the next day edging past them again. Some great helming, &a good sail change meant that we were ahead& gaining slowly. Then with around 40 miles to go to the race finish, 4 boats were within a few miles of each other battling for 2nd 7 3rd place; the wierdest thing being that 2 of them were a hundred miles away, so we had no idea whether they were in better or worse winds than us, &therefore how well we were doing. So we put everthing into it- helming & triming as hard as we could. The miles ticked away slowly, but eventually it was all over & we just had to wait for the results to come though. First it looked as though we had made third, but then after some minor controversy, it became clear that New York had made a mistake in reporting their position &we had beaten them to 2nd by a mere 9 mins after 2000 nmiles!<

Message From nicole

The boys are taking part in a central american style moustache growing competition with Liverpool, & they are coming along nicely -though when you catch them on a dark night it is a little scary! Last night was pretty cool. The galaxies were the brightest I have ever seen, & the phosphoresence was out in force, with little lights flashing all over the sea, & lit up dolphins swooshing around. I even think there were a few neon coloured aliens out there!<