Wrapping Stage 6
We made it to the Philippines !
Wow, it’s February 21st and our arrival to Subic Bay was on February 11th.
My last instagram post was a simple mention of me going off watch, not realizing that it would take me this long to finally write an update.
To be honest, I haven’t been sleeping for these 10 days. After a few days of maintenance to the boat and necessary sail repairs, Filip came out to Manila and we had a 5 day break in which we visited the beautiful island of Palawan, with places like Port Barton and El Nido which are somewhat touristy, but a very pleasant relieve away from the Yacht Club in Subic Bay (Olongapo).
Recap Stage 6 - Airlie Beach to Subic Bay
We did it, 24 days off shore, 21d 12h 37m 55s, good for a fourth place over the finish. Obviously that doesn’t say everything about the journey and how we raced and even though not making the podium for the first time, I’m looking back to an amazing experience and recharged for the next race (Stage 7) to Qingdao.
It will be very interesting to read up on the daily blogs our skipper Oli writes to the onshore team and I’ll be looking back to some of my own updates to relive the whole race. It was everything I had hoped for, with the exception of some of the windholes that seemed to keep us pretty much stationary for-e-ver. We sailed slow and we sailed hard and I can happily report that I didn’t get too seasick in any of the conditions.
After the doldrums and the lee (wind shadow) off the islands around Papa New Guinea , we were positioned with the head of the fleet and had to chase some of the teams who had stayed just a bit more East and picked up wind again before we did.
When the wind picked up again we worked for days to keep the best sail plan going, even if that meant we had to drop and hoist kites squall after squall. This race went into the books with the highest number of sail changes! If I thought I wouldn’t catch up with the multi-leggers, I definitely got dragged into any of the jobs that had to be done.
We take a lot of pride in the ocean sprint points we scored, it was the fastest I’ve sailed under spinnaker and we clocked speeds over the rolling waves up to 27 knots measured by GPS. Not our boat, but here’s some representative footage of what it looked like onboard.
There are so many aspects to Ocean Racing that I would have never been able to experience any other way. Also on the days (4) on which I was on Galley duty, it was rewarding to feed the whole team; baking bread, make some cold Iced Tea to cool everyone off and enjoy the longer rest afterwards. It’s a cycle on board where you live watch by watch and carefully keep your energy levels up with food and sleep, but also your mental capacity to deal with it all. Having a restricted data plan was absolutely no luxury and the messages I got on board made me feel supported and helped me appreciate everything I take for granted.
It would probably make a good post to talk a bit more about our culture on board and how we all keep ourselves and each other going, team GOSH is more than a couple of individuals who want to sail and a lot attention goes into how we behave and treat each other. Results are nice, but they are a product of a boat that is taken care off and a team in which everyone is trying to develop themselves with the support of others.
Everytime we open the hatch above the Nav Station, we see the following three letters encouraging us: GLF. And behind the helm some random tunes blasting through the speakers.
