Tuesday 3 March 2009

VOR: TELEFÓNICA BLUE LEG FIVE DAY 17 QFB: received 02.03.09 1258

by Tom Addis (navigator)

This is the last day and night in paradise. From now, we hook into a SE which will take us all the way to NZ and beyond, so it has been a big day for finishing off jobs needing flat water, warmth and all those other good things.

Now at midnight, we have big lines of squalls on the radar ahead of the shift and the mood is changing a bit as people realise that this could be the last warm, sunny, flat day for the next two weeks or so.

It’s been a pretty good day for us. We have gained in the west quite well and still trying to pull bearing south on Ericsson 4, Ericsson 3 and Puma. Big news is that we finally saw another boat on the horizon (the Dragons), so it was out with the binoculars and hand bearing compasses for the first time in a while!

Really good to have another boat around to give a real time indication on how we are doing rather than a snapshot every three hours from the scheds. Shame they are too far away to see at night though and if we do everything right tonight they will be too far away in daylight tomorrow too!

So on we plug, looking and waiting for the header into our final breeze to get us to NZ.

Better run upstairs.

Volvo Ocean Race

No comments: