Yiii haa! What a morning to celebrate! And what a nerve wracking afternoon and evening that follows! Besides the 24 hour birthday party that started at midnight, we all received the long awaited news everyone has been expecting – Cubaneren has taken the lead in division 7! Last 24 hours and the next 48 will determine who will make it to victory, one of the Cal40s or your favourite racing machine – Cubaneren. The fleet is spread by approx. 200 nautical miles and none of us posess the power to significantly alter our positions and/or tacktical moves based on the competitors actions. Windspeeds will be different as well as directions – and the time has come for each of us to gain (or take the pain) of all our decisions ’till now. To add even mote thrilling facts the winds are currently weaker than experienced so far – and none of us know the abilities of the other boats in these conditions.
And to make the drama complete – Azure is allegedly seeking compensation after assisting one of the boats in division 4 last morning who reported the well known water as diesel doesn’t work problem. This means we don’t know how far ahead we actually are – or if we’re ahead at all…!! Oh nooo!
Even though we’ve finally taken the lead (or have we?), we haven’t focused to much on the sailing today. After screaming and celebrating to such extent that some of us lost their voice following the latest position report, we had Maren’s muffin for breakfast. One of the J105 in division 6 – Creative – noticed the birthday song on the VHF and joined the party in a close starboard/port situation (no kidding!) with a margin of less than 15 boat lenghts. Good fun – and as always, when they left the party, we agreed to see each other again soon like all drunk party people do. Hopefully it won’t be in too many days! Please!
Not mentioned yesterday when telling the story of life onboard, is the size of the cockpit. Or the outdoor area as non sailors will call it. Modern boats usually offer great space in these areas, but the evolution of such was definitely not started when the Wasa 55 was designed and build in the 70s and 80s. Cubaneren hardly fits more than three Norwegian sailors (equal to 5 Chinese maybe, but that doesn’t make sense since it’s a Swedish daysailor or?) while under sails. This turned out be quite challenging when having a birthday party of five – including Captain Morgan who also dropped by. As a result we have gybed three times today to keep less people in the cockpit – and more people on the foredeck. Turned out to be a great success and is higly recommended to other Wasa 55 owners looking to throw a good party onboard. The party itself cannot be easily described, but we’ll try to provide photos later as they are supposed to say more than a thousands words – way above our limit in the daily report.
Thanks a lot to everyone who sent their best wishes (or wishes at all) to Karl Otto and Eirik on their 72nd birthday. Especially the video smuggled onboard before start touched our hearts. Almost cried. Almost. No, just kidding :-p
And Matt – don’t worry, we’re trimming to win!
Now it’s time for some popcorn (crazy, I know, but we’re only turning 72 once) while sailing into what might be the second sunset in 12 days….. Time will show, but the Pacific Ocean almost never fails when it comes to dissapointing sun experiences.
Stay up at night, don’t let your Yellow Brick app go to sleep, send us your best windspeed vibes for the next 48 hours and we shall all be good! Felize Navidad! See you tomorrow!
