From Brawn to Brain

The last 24 hours have been pretty full on. The pace at which we went from Ushant forwards has been exhausting.  We were really pushing the boat and decided to back off after a bit, because although it felt really good and the boat was going great, we’ve got to have the bigger picture in mind. We have been through a lot of transitions, which means lugging sails around, taking them off the back, putting them up the front and of course everything is wet.  During last night the breeze was up and down, so lot of putting reefs in and then taking them out, which was exhausting. However, we have woken up to sunshine, which was great, got the solar panels out, and the wind was a bit more stable.  I think if the first couple of days were about showing your muscles, the next couple of days are going to be about using our brain power, because we’ve got to negotiate through some headwinds and some little mini-fronts to make the most of progressing south. It has been a bit more easy-going throughout today, which is great, because we are both physically exhausted.

The tempo has completely changed for us now, the rest of the fleet appear to have good brains on them, so we just need to keep thinking, keep making sure we’re looking at the weather and making good decisions, but it’s definitely not going to be a simple blast down to the Canaries, which is what I think everyone was hoping for.

The important thing from our point of view is that the boat’s holding together really well and I’m really pleased.  We are regularly going around and inspecting everything and it’s all good and dry and solid. Until tomorrow…