Maverick GBR4945R Skipper Day 6 Blog

Good Morning team Maverick Fans! Welcome to day 6. Apologies that there was no blog on Day 5 but we had a bit on. The sailing went relatively to plan as per my blog on day 4. We continued to head west and the breeze built as the afternoon went on and veered onto our beam. We moved through the wardrobe until we ended upon the Jib top Genoa Staysail combo (one of our favorites on the yacht) as the wind built so did the boat speeds until we were regularly sitting in the high teens low 20's of boat speed. It was still light but I was below trying to get some sleep. I knew that I would have to pilot the yacht in the pitch dark of night. Just before dusk we played with a few sail settings (reefs etc) to try and find the optimum. Strangely we took too much sail off and the yacht lost her dynamic stability and we could not make good progress. This meant we returned to one reef and got ready. I have never had an experience like this. Regardless of the outcome of this race (which I am still hopeful will be a good one) helming a 46 ft yacht at regular speeds in excess of 20kts at night with no moon, no stars and no horizon in short sharp seas was a phenomenal experience. All I could see was the green and red hue of the navlights as it light up the huge amounts of spray. I must say thanks to Ocean Rodeo for the dry suits. They were fantastic in the supremely wet conditions and I have been living in mine for the last few days. To the now. We eventually (sooner than we hoped) had to stop foiling and go into an upwind mode as the wind veered further ahead of the front. This was forcing us north but we held our nerve and in the early morning the front went through with 34 kts of wind as its peak wind speed. Soon after we tacked over onto the other board to start heading south. Initially we were again in an upwind mode but have been slowly freed (too slowly) as the wind continues to veer. Unfortunately the wind we are now experiencing is a bit less than we hoped for and we cant quite keep Maverick on the foil. It is oscillating between 10 and 14 kts. This is not ideal as we need to foil in order to compete with the much larger yachts. We also need to make good progress south before the large developing high pressure makes things too flat. The likelihood is that we will need to work through a transition zone sometime tomorrow and we will finally be in the trades (although weak ones). In other news Piers seems to be reacting well to the cocktail of medication I have given him (other than falling over on the bow a lot). And this may seem funny but as the Hydraulic oil levels are falling more slowly as we use the keel less and Sean had a nice birthday. We have another birthday soon with Mr Kees Postma having his first birthday at sea. Down below is in pretty good shape but I am looking forward to conditions that will allow us to dry down below out. The sails collect a huge amount of water and we have to live with them down below. I'm just about to go and help Kees bail. As this yacht has no bilges if you do not bail out the water you get to live in it. Not conducive to a comfortable crossing! I have only just discovered the Expeditions foods Custard and Apple and Beef Strogonoff. They are fantastic. Anyway that is all for now peeps.... "When I'm old, i plan to look back on my life and say, 'wow, that was an adventure,' not, 'wow, i sure felt safe" Tom preston-werner Olly Out....

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