Day Three
11 July 2014 | At Sea
Rodney
Our Third day at sea has turned very nice. We found out this morning that we are still in first place in our division and the sun has finally come out. We we were able to dry out most of our sails and cloths that have been very wet since the start of the race. RJ has been very busy video taping our adventure with a GoPro. He has been interviewing everyone and taping some very special scenes, like folding sails, spinnaker sets, and Gypes. He is determined to top his video of our last trip. We are starting to see more debris from Japan - today we saw a 55 gallon drum that pass close by. Luckily we avoided a collision.
The wind has gotten very light so we are working pretty hard to fight for every puff. Since we blew up our .75 oz spinnaker we now have to change between the .5oz and 1.5oz rather than just leaving up the .75oz. We are seeing many squalls now that come from behind us and cause lots of challenges. When a squall approaches the wiind will go from 8 knots to 20 knots in minutes. We need to make sure we change from our .5oz to the 1.5 before it arrives. We probably do a spinnaker change every 3 to 4 hours.
Since the weather is becoming warmer we brought the speakers out on deck to enjoy some music. The driver always gets to choose the song while he is driving. RJ just picked Dark Side of the Moon - good choice. We had Tie Beef Curry tonight over rice - it was awesome. Since all our meals are frozen we just take one out of the freezer boil it in salt water. Then I make some fresh rice in the pressure cooker. Put the two together and you have a happy Crew.
Our two main competitors Green Buffalo and California Girl have split courses, one above us and one below. We are doing everything we can to sail down the rumb line and stay ahead of them. We were able to make 184 miles. We will be slowing down quite a bit now as we sail into light air.