After the Equator - a drag race South
Life has certainly changed in the last 48 hours, and I now find myself in a drag race to the south of Brazil with the small peloton we have formed over the last week or so. There's not too much brains in this, the wind is relatively stable, so it's about straight-line speed. what can your boat take? What can you take? With the breath of Cali, Didac and Manuel hot on the back of my neck I feel like I am being hunted. I am trying hard to stay ahead but slowly Cali and Manu are taking the miles out of me and my 20 year old boat is doing so, so well, but there are no more gears left - we have reached warp speed.
Breaking free of the doldrums was like being given my freedom back. To get moving, and gain some stability finally felt like I was being allowed to do my job once more. I have now exchanged those head-banging conditions for a bouncy life on the heel which in honesty is just as challenging but at least I am going somewhere.
The wind is between 13 and 18 knots which means to keep Medallia on pace I need to regularly trim the sails to power up and depower the mainsail. This has not been helped by one of the U bolts holding a mainsheet block onto the traveller ripping out last night so now I have a jury rigged mainsheet system until I can make a proper repair and as a result am not able to get the same leech tension in the mainsail - effectively in the lighter breeze I am forced to sail in a less powerful mode. I can see this has had an impact on my speed, but I just need to keep plugging on and get South with not too much lost.
I've been hearing news of Alex's damage and repairs. I can only imagine how stressful, tough, and disappointing that is. It sounds like they are all over a repair though, so I really hope he will have the opportunity to get back in the race again. Any damage like that makes me look around my boat, thinking what would that be for me? What could it happen to me? It is sobering.
Meanwhile I am trying to adjust to living life on the heel. Medallia is at full heel all the time and will be for the next 48 hours at least. This is between 20 and 25 degrees of slope, just so the toe rail is clear of the water. It's quite a lot and it makes every single thing difficult. Imagine a 20 degree slope, it doesn't sound much, but then imagine tipping your whole house up at that angle and living like that for three days.
Every time you want to walk from one end of the kitchen to the other, you either have to lean into the hill and push hard to get uphill or grab hold of the kitchen counters to try and control your descent to the downhill side. Every task you perform, whether cooking, maintenance, trimming sails, walking around the boat doing daily checks, you are fighting gravity. If you are sitting you must be wedged, if standing you are permanently leaning into the heel, with your legs and knees flexing as you crash over waves. Every implement required in your day needs to be either attached to you or placed somewhere it can't fall, nothing left unattended will stay where you put it.
And I am sure the force of gravity increases as the day gets hotter. Doing anything at all requires a plan. I went to get a new packet of wet wipes from where my stack of bags is in a windward cubby hole. It was not easy to find the bag I wanted and I had nowhere to hold onto so kept falling backwards while rummaging. In the end it was easier to clear a space and get into the locker with the bags, at least then I couldn't fall out and I wasn't straining every muscle to keep in position while I looked.
And so this is life for the next two days at least. Time to get on with it, look at the numbers, keep Medallia on her toes, remember to drink water as much as I can get down my neck and keep heading South.