Surprise Storm!
Busy few days here aboard Team Sanya. We’re off the coast of Brazil (it’s never ending!) and had good wind through the Ocean sprint, but will have to wait for all teams to finish before finding out if we were one of the 3 fastest. Seumas thinks we have a good shot at being 2nd. As soon as we finished the sprint late Tuesday night, our luck changed. Wednesday morning I woke up for my 12pm watch to bright skies, BIG seas and our code 3 spinnaker (smallest & strongest) giving us about 14 knots.
Seumas mentioned there was a small low pressure system (i.e. stormy weather) about 300 miles away that we may have to deal with in the next day or so. Well, it ended up showing up early. Around 5:30pm stuff started to get real. The plan was to drop the spinnaker and switch to stronger head sails, but the weather was coming fast. As soon as our new head sail was up, Seumas decided winds were too strong and we needed to drop it.
Dropping it basically means 6 people trying to pull a waxed canvas triangle that is 90’ tall x 20’ wide into a boat fighting against 20+ knot winds trying to blow the sail into the water. Add to that, the fact that the waves were huge! Standing on the deck, walking up to the bow, I swear they looked like mountains to me. Huge, slanted walls of water about 15’ high coming toward our boat at an angle of about 10 o’clock off the bow. The boat lifts and then comes down the other side with water crashing over the foredeck, exactly where 6 of us are fighting to get the sail over the guardrail and into the boat. The ocean was beautiful, but I could only steal quick glances before getting scared, so I just focused on the task in front of me. At one point a wave washed 3 of us down the deck about 6’, and I mean wash, not push. We were completely engulfed by water and lifted off the deck. Thank God for safety tethers!
Even though it was scary and my eyes stung from the salt water, I had a great time. The water was warm and we all agreed that had the waves been ice cold, it would have been really painful. Definitely safe to say I will never choose to sail in cold weather. Once the sail was down, I had a good 4 hour nap and then was back on deck in full foul weather gear for the 12am watch.
Thursday’s weather was a little lighter, but still didn’t match what our weather forecast said. The biggest problem is the wind direction was coming more from the south vs. the east like we expected. The result of this is us having to sail more upwind vs. on a beam reach (wind angle of 90 degrees to the boat), which is faster and allows you fly a spinnaker. To double down on our frustration, Qingdao didn’t run into the low pressure system and instead got consistent easterly winds allowing them to fly their spinnaker and gain nearly 40 miles on us!!
So here we are on Friday afternoon. This morning looked much like Wednesday with the spinnaker flying, big seas and bright skies. The wind angle is 90 degrees and we’re back to a consistent 11 knot speed. Sunday night or Monday morning we may run into another system off the coast of Rio, but for now we’re just hoping this wind stays as expected and that we’ll be able to take back some of the miles from Qingdao. ‘
Seumas expects we’ll change the spinnaker tonight to a larger one that lets us go faster if the wind forecast (speed and angle) is correct. Might happen on our 12am watch. No matter what spinnaker is up, sailing under spinnaker is much harder vs. using headsails. Everyone on deck is on high alert trying to manage the larger, less stable sail and exhausted by the end of the 4 hours. Needless to say we’re all focused on a win and committed to doing everything we can to make the boat go faster. If Qingdao ran into some unexpected weather, that would be ok with us too. A come from behind win for them would be so painful! More updates coming soon. Love to everyone back home! Wish us fair winds!! About a week until Punta del Este!
Unicef relies entirely on voluntary donations to improve the lives of children around the world. Please consider making a contribution today. Every dollar makes a difference!