Words from Gibraltar
TUESDAY, JANUARY 17, 2023
0800 UTC
POSITION: 2nd
DISTANCE TO FINISH: 1,534.5
There was some sarcastic discussion of career changes in the morning darkness while zig-zagging our way across Gibraltar, fighting 4 knots of adverse current, 35 knot winds, steep waves and an armada of outbound traffic. You can’t say we weren’t warned though! All of the forecasts were right, if not a shade shy.
Once into the meat of the Med it has been 10-20 percent windier, on average, than expected, and after 24 hours onboard of relentless upwind slamming everyone’s feeling a bit battered. This, after a tricky first night of multiple light-air transitions, has made this a really challenging start to this race. Nobody has really slept, nobody has really eaten and nobody has really settled in.
Nonetheless we have escaped the Mediterranean Sea and are now into the Atlantic Ocean where we are still going upwind and where it is still blowing 30! But the waves have spread out and there’s a general feeling of freedom, without the coastal confinement of Spain and Morocco it feels like we can finally stretch our legs. Our goal was to leave the Med in first because it could well be a case of rich-get-richer and we had worked hard to build a 4 mile lead over Holcim, despite their reluctance to “fall in.” It was fun racing. Trading tacks all day, someone would always gain and someone would always lose, a real battle of inshore vs offshore.
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Offshore you had breeze but also current, inshore was free of current, but winds got light under the lee of land. Who could find the right balance… Then, during a particularly windy tack, 45 knots or so, our J3 dragged across the radar dome tearing it in half from leech to luff. Besides the delay in getting it down and the storm jib up, we have been sailing upwind without our primary up-range jib. A slow bleed as they say and we finally relinquished our lead. Fortunately, when we soon turn downwind, the J3s place as a staysail, inside much larger sails, will be less damaging.
There is a ton of sailing left, and much of it at high speed. And while we are still currently northing, away from Cabo Verde, it’s akin to pulling back the rubber band. We’re putting in the work now to make the long downwind trip more efficient. We don’t want to get stuck too close to the coast where winds will be lighter and less stable. So we’re getting offshore now, in steady 20-30, then turning towards the Canaries. Should be a fast trip!
