Friday 13 March 2009

VOR: TELEFÓNICA BLUE LEG FIVE DAY 27 QFB: received 12.03.09 0504 GMT

by Bouwe Bekking (skipper)

We have had torrential rain the entire day, and not much breeze. High pressure systems bring back home clear blue skies, but here it seems always the opposite.

Right now the breeze is dropping further, only seven knots of breeze left, painful and raining even harder. The guys on deck look like soaked cats, and since the wind is stable in direction, one of the watch members can sit down below in the entrance of the cabin and at least stay dry for a bit.

I think this is one of the first watches that more than one on deck is feeling a bit colder. Still 700 miles to go to the second ice waypoint and with these speeds at least another three days to go. From there on it looks like healthy pressure going to the Horn.

We passed this morning a big group of pilot whales, who didn’t show any interest in us, but for us it was good to see something else, than just the grey skies.

We had today a day were we followed our media man in the galley and on deck. But when we reviewed the video, we all burst out in laughing. The most important shot was taken in the kitchen and faced aft. But in the corner of the picture a big white butt was to be seen. David was giving his buttocks a treatment with sudacreme, and of course didn’t know that he was in the shot. The stand in camera man didn’t realise he had David’s bum in the shot either. Of course it will be unusable for usage on the weekly TV programme, but it gave us a good laugh. Good that Gabry (Gabry Olivo MCM) can take on his normal duties again.

We gave our fuel situation a good look and it seems alright, even that we most likely spend more days on the water than ever expected. Food shouldn’t be an issue either and we have enough gas to keep cooking warm meals and prepare hot drinks.
As I type, breeze has dropped to a mere four knots, boatspeed 3.5 knots, did we deserve this? I guess so.

Volvo Ocean Race

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