Day 04 – 3^rd September

Perfect Conditions

A big bright moon crossing the Bay of Biscay. It was so bright it was as if someone had put flood lights on, which made it nice and easy trimming the sails and helming. What a great night that was.

During the day Port watch hoisted the Code 3 and so our speed went up, which was nice. As the day progressed, the wind increased so we dropped the C3.

Skipper's Blog

Hello from ClipperTelemed+! Yesterday provided us with a fantastic day of spinnaker sailing across the Bay of Biscay. The last time I was in the Bay of Biscay it was howling at 35 knots from the south west and I was heading....south west. Less than ideal conditions!

That made yesterday a very welcome fantastic spinnaker run in the sunshine. Not only that but we managed to pull some miles out of Unicef and inch our way forward a little. By midnight though it was time to gybe. Port watch was on deck and ready for the task. Keep in mind that we hadn't gybed the kite at all yet and so they were about to gybe in the dark in 17 knots without a practice run in the daylight.

Alex Laline was on deck ready to manage the complex lines running across the bow. Justin Howard worked the preventer around to the windward side of the boat. Linda McDavitt managed the pit with the preventer winch, tack line and spinnaker halyard and we were ready to go in a heartbeat. 

Waiting for Dinner

Nick Abramczyk flew the kite through the first half of the gybe. Mark Jenkinson drove the pedestal grinder like a mad man while David Juniper pulled in the new active spinnaker sheet.

Debs Spicer ran the pedestal grinder on the main sheet for Javier Sopelana Martinez who brought the main in and across the boat and Justin double-dutied up and ran the runner forward once we had gybed. Finally at the back end of it all was Mark Stevenson driving the boat in the dark.

With a "helms to weather" we swung the boat through the wind and everyone went into action. The only one who wasn't compliant was the spinnaker which developed a little hour glass. The guys ground on the sheet and luckily enough the kite unspun itself and the hour glass spun out. Not to worry though as Linda had the spin halyard ready to ease a little just in case. That was our bailout plan if the kite didn't unspin.

A fantastic job was done by all and we settled in on the new gybe toward the coast of Spain with an added bonus of hopefully squeaking a few more miles out on our competition and working our way towards Mission Performance!

Crew Blog

Apparently Mother Nature heard our appreciation yesterday and rewarded us with yet another wonderful sight, that of a breaching whale off starboard side. The irony...Port Watch was on deck and Starboard were off snoozing in their bunks, however the sounds of the crew jubilantly pointing to the whale just feet off the boat got the sleeping crew out of their bunks and on deck, alas it disappeared. The beautiful mammal returned just before dinner...again with Port watch on deck! Our Moby Dick moment.

Dinner Preparations

On the subject of dinner and meals for that matter, I finally have a much greater appreciation of mealtime for my wonderful black lab rescues at home in Washington DC, Kodi and Kina. On board we eat on a very specific system that allows the incoming watch to eat first, then go on deck so the off coming watch can come down and eat. It all makes sense and helps keep the boat moving as well try feeding 22 hungry mouths at once in the galley it gets a bit congested.

Not only are we on a set schedule we are also on portion control because we can't exactly carry around a grocery store to resupply as needed...some eat more than others...in fact it appears some of us might be hungry always. Now don't think we are all starving, we are well fed and there is plenty of food, thank you to our victuallers John and Debbie for their hours and hours of shopping and countless more planning our meals...however, the call for any leftovers or helping to clean the bowls is met by many wagging tails.

Weather today...Fantastic! Oh High Pressure System, how you reward us with blue following seas, clear warm skies and puffy white clouds...and barely enough wind to keep us moving...however, buddy, time to stop the sunbathing...we have a party to get to in Rio! We're not complaining...thank you kind seas...more wind please.

We're also not alone in our battle of musical chairs and who's left without a seat when the wind disappears...so thank you to our fellow Clipper Race yachts helping to push us along.

Meals...Breakfast: Cereal, Lunch: Tuna Wraps, Dinner: YUMMY! Noodles and fresh peppers with chicken and sweet and sour sauce. Thank you Mothers Ryan and Birthday Boy Craig (who baked his own birthday cake!) Great job today.

Kitemare: 1.0...DONE and DONE...kite is back in the bag...thank you to Alex in his lead role as sailmaker (when he's not catching a wave at the helm or on the bow) and for Nigel, Debbs, Chris and our Skipper for hours (actually days) of taping, sewing and more sewing! You Rock.

Starboard watch lead by Elaine is leading an international watch who have now hoisted spinnakers twice and repacked and wooled them both in this bouncy environment. As a crew we are all trying to exemplify the words of Sir Robin Knox Johnson who said: "Seamanship and safety skills predominate throughout the race."