Stealth Mode
Hi everyone. I’m back for what will likely be my final post before Arthur takes the helm of his blog again ⚓
There isn’t that much to report at the moment, as Team GOSH and several other boats are currently in stealth mode. So for now, we can take a break from refreshing the tracker and wondering where they’re placing, anxiously waiting for them pop back into view. I have a sneaky feeling the leaderboard may look very different when they do.
But in really good news, they placed first in yet another Ocean Sprint!
With the finish of this leg drawing closer, this final stretch of the race is shaping up to be one of the most exciting chapters of Arthur’s journey so far. The last I heard from him, he was both excited to reach China and ready to cross the finish line, though he admitted it would feel a little bittersweet if they miss out on the podium.
Arrivals in Qingdao seem to be something truly special to experience, and this year should be no exception. So if you are able, try to catch any of the live arrivals on Facebook Live. The welcome is a celebration in every sense of the word. Each team is greeted with traditional Chinese dragon dancing, vibrant drumming performances, fireworks, and a huge local crowd cheering them in.
Watching him chase this dream has been such a gift. Being apart for so long hasn’t been easy, but knowing he is out there living something he has dreamed of for years, supported and encouraged by all of you, makes it all feel so worth it! I know we are all keeping our fingers crossed and quietly hoping for that podium for him.
I also want to say a sincere thank you to everyone who has been following along, sending messages, and cheering Arthur on from all around the world. It really does mean so much, not just to him out there on the ocean, but to me and the boys here at home as well. Knowing that so many people are sharing in his journey makes the distance feel a little smaller and the quiet moments a little easier.
So I will keep my update short and let Arthur tell the story the only way he can, straight from the middle of the action.
Leg 5 - Stage 7:
Day 6 on the meal plan starting on Sunday, Day 3 of the race with Tuesday counting as 0. It was a slow and difficult start, with the anticipation of the Le Mans start after 240 NM on engine we were well settled into our watch system and ready to take off with above 20 knots of wind. When that happened at a closed reach (think 45° heel), I had to swallow for a bit to get used to the angle and more so the difficulties of life onboard. Even though I knew what to expect and there was a long break in the Philippines, it’s hard to stop thinking about the time as on land. Now a watch is a watch again and over 48h you’ve done each of the day and night shifts, which goes surprisingly fast if you take into account that the other time you spend mostly sleeping or resting on your bunk.
From the start we’ve been talking about the weather cooling off quickly, but in contrary, we still had warm weather, some rain showers and more disappointing; a few watches with very low windspeed.
As we prepared for the Ocean Sprint we chose to make it more East in order to limit the miles to go North during the sprint. At first both Warrant and Seattle Sports were following us into the same direction, whereas Qingdao and Unicef went up North sooner, following the rhumb line. The start of our Ocean Sprint was dreadful and slow and we had to watch Warrant taking a breeze about 2h before we did. Also the other boats made much better speeds thanks to their position on the front of a low pressure system. The result, a last place on the race tracker.
Now we’re well under way and maxed out on the lead time of the other pack, left our last place to Warrant as we gently passed them with less than a few meters between our boats and we changed the Code 3, hoisted at night, for the Code 2, which is perfectly suited for the windspeed and the wind angle. Besides the distance made good on our oponants, it’s reassuring to see our average speed over 6h being the highest. The race is ON.
As we get closer, it’s more likely that we are in similar winds as the other boats and even though it is mostly an upwind race, we know we’re fast any time we can get our spinnakers up.
Today I’m on galley duty, lunch wasn’t everyone’s favourite, but at least Roger is happy to be served Baked Beans for lunch and a few exceptions are made for those who do not like them. At home we would joyfully praise those beans. `Beans, beans, magical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot. The more you toot, the better you feel, so eat beans for every meal!`
The compressor of our fridge and freezer combination failed, we left another broken one behind in Subic Bay for reparation and now we are going through our fresh food and meat first. Therefore tonight is Day 8’s dinner, Spaghetti Bolognese. Luckily we’re not as desperate for our daily ice popsicles with the cooler air and occasional rain showers.
Last night we crossed two other vessels, one of them being a Disney Adventure cruise. We were imagining all the great food and drinks they had onboard and came up with plenty of questions to ask them over the radio Otto just asked them to move out of our way and what the number of people was onboard. 5500 people had to make a small circle around us, they probably didn’t notice it as it was 4.30am and I imagine most of them were sound asleep.
February is almost over and we’ll be coming out of the Ocean Sprint with less miles sailed, but no expectations as the first couple of hours were frustrating slow.
Let’s see if I my updates come before any official results shared by Clipper. We anticipate a lot of traffic to look out for as we turn around the North of Taiwan and the finish in about 800NM will be off the coast to avoid any hazards and the arrival will be formal and festive. Regardless of the results, something I’m absolutely looking forward to!
CV27. Over.
