Doldrums (Part 2)
It’s the morning of Day 11 and it’s gorgeous out. We turned our motor on at 9:50am and are finally experiencing the doldrums people told us about! Not the extreme heat, but a perfectly pleasant warmth with partly cloudy skies. Over the last two days, the crew has gotten a much needed rest. We’ve got two weeks of upwind sailing ahead and a race to win! We need to be rested.
The boat looks like a frat house with clothes and underwear hanging everywhere as everyone took the opportunity to do laundry. People also showered! I bought a camping shower for the boat and it’s been a huge hit. In the middle of the ocean, open sky above, fresh water, and the smell of shampoo. It’s glorious! The ultimate, outdoor, luxury shower!
One of the guys on my watch wasn’t planning on showering until I told him he really needed it. Other members of the crew were so grateful for my New York directness in telling someone they smelled that they quickly gave me a list of two other people that needed encouragement. So far, two of the three have showered and we’re hoping Seumas will do so today. (Yes, I told the skipper he smelled. It’s a small boat when it comes to BO).
Day 12 has brought cloudy skies and some drizzle, but it also brought more dolphins and a pod of pilot whales. We didn’t see them breach, but all of a sudden in the water we saw tens of fins just hanging out. It was beautiful to see nature in such a pure state. Something about the juxtaposition of the storm less than 48 hours before and then the calmness of these sleeping whales that makes you stop for a moment in awe of nature. Day 12 also brought about a call from our main opponent, Qingdao. Their generator broke and they needed to meet up to transfer some fuel.
Speaking of Qingdao. So before the storm, their skipper Chris called Seumas to ask about our sail plan (um, hello? Chris, this is a race!). He posed it like a safety question and Seumas played it perfectly talking about putting a reef in and keeping our staysail up, but he didn’t mention switching to smaller headsails (yankee 3 for the sailors out there). At the start of the storm, we had about 5 miles on Qingdao. By the end of it, we had 39!! We flew 3 sails and they only flew 2. Tracking our distance gained on them was also part of the reason we really enjoyed Lorenzo. (Separate fun fact, I’ve now sailed through a named storm and close to force 10 winds off Finisterre, Spain. Apparently, these are items on the sailor’s checklist).
In terms of racing, the fuel transfer doesn’t impact us that much since we are both motoring and started our engines around the same time. Once you start your engine you have to keep it on for 60 hours and can’t go further than 6 degrees of latitude. Qingdao started their engine 4 hours before us, so basically the biggest factor right now is what the wind looks like for the 4 hours they are sailing and we are motoring at 6 knots. They started sailing at around 6:00pm and we start at 9:50pm (all times are UTC).
It’s beautiful out here! Glassy sea, a sort of a lapiz indigo color, ripples like you see on a lake when you throw a pebble in, with puffy clouds like a string of cotton balls on the horizon and then clear, light blue, pastel almost sky above. Before we start racing again, we might get to go swimming!! Fingers crossed we get to the end of the doldrums corridor early and have some time to kill (and daylight). We start upwind sailing again tomorrow and will do everything we can for a win coming into Punta! We also have the ocean sprint to tackle.
Thanks for all your support! Big hugs to everyone at home. Love you all!
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View while I was writing this blog post
Thankful we didn’t lose the drone. It was close!