Christmas Day & e-mail from Mowgli

(by Boris) We are still sailing more or less prudent and conservative since the beginning and aiming to stay a little more north than the fastest route would be. We pay for this with a 61 miles gap to the first boat “Team Mowgli” at this morning’s pol. But when I read what they experience in comparison how we spend yesterday I am happy with our decision.

The weather gods have been Kind to us at Christmas eve. Yesterday we were once down to second reef and staysail but just for two hours since then we sailed under full solent and second reef main. We averaged something around 11 to 12 knots and pointed sometimes at 18 or 19 knots when surfing down the waves. Because it sounds a bit radical inside the boat we stayed in standby one of us dressed all night but at one point we got confident that no gusts would knock us down or want to eat our solent (solent=jib/genoa). We both took our time off with the noise cancelling headphones and some of the gifts Santa Clause brought along earlier yesterday. We got very kind, lovely little and very personal gifts, lots of sweets and some music and literature. My mum also gave me a little Nintendo device with an intelligence training program. May be she is worried about her son being stuck behind the navstation for 9 month without sufficient intellectual stimulation. Or she always had her doubts. But more likely she just had this very good idea without any special thoughts like that. For the long night watch its ideal. It even trains the ability to read tunes - something I always wanted to get on with.

But now back to sailing: Read what kind of a Christmas eve Jeremy and Dave had onboard Mowgli - the leading boat - and how they got beaten up just e few hundred miles further south:

(Mail from Mowgli this morning) “We have however decided to delay killing the fattened turkey until this new storm blows past so I guess we will have our celebrations a couple of days late. We may be able to sneak in a small glass of champagne however! In any case it will certainly be a Christmas unlike any other we have experienced and one we shall not forget in a hurry. We were pretty beaten up by the storm yesterday with winds gusting to just below 80 knots and the most incredible sea state. The wind was in excess of 60 knots for several hours. Heavy waves breaking over the boat caused several knock downs and one of the waves knocked out our rear metal framework for the antennas, taking out all our comms and leaving four significant holes in the deck. Despite a reef in the staysail, it also tore some hours before and we were already down to four reefs in the main and the storm jib, latterly taking down the mainsail too. Everything is pretty much fixed today and we are now able to concentrate on sailing once again. We hope the storm over the next couple of days is kinder to us all! I hope you all manage to have a merry Christmas, even if it is a couple of days late for you too. We will be thinking of you all.

All the best.
Jeremy and David