Day 25 – Tuesday 28 January 2020
By Max Elsworth
Night watch was cool last night because we had bioluminescence for the first time in a while. The clouds were also gone, so we could see the night sky again and enjoy it with awe. Waking up to the sound of the fishing reel spinning was music to our ears and we all jumped out of bed and ran to the reels (even the vegetarian) only to lose the fish to a big wave and the boat’s speed. We were all really excited to eat fresh fish after such a long time and disappointed that we didn’t catch one. We then all had a dip in the water (for only a couple of seconds) before Mika ‘mom’d’ us out of the water because we were apparently slowing down the boat and he said we needed to make up ground instead. He did have a point.
It was really nice to receive emails from our moms after not receiving anything for a couple of days due to a bad satellite connection – probably due to the weather and our skippers were even more excited to get the internet back online so that they could check the weather and get us on a good track.
At sunset we had an impromptu photoshoot on the bow against the backdrop of the sun setting behind the spinnaker – without anybody at the helm which we tied very briefly in the light wind as we aren’t allowed to use the boat’s autohelm. Captain Chappy was on the helm at the time and sprinted forward to get it into one of the selfies. We boiled eggs today (after 21 days we still haven’t finished them!) I taught Mika how a play a very important childhood game of mine: Mindsweepers and am proud of how quickly he learned it under my guidance. The padawan has become the master.
The wind has become favourable for us to fly the lightweight spinnaker most nights which we were initially hesitant to do after losing our heavyweight spinnaker to a gust in the early days of the race and now sail with three up at night just in case we get caught off guard by a squall. What is really nice about flying the spinnaker is the really good quality braided lines that we get to manage it with – I recall they are made of super strong polyethylene that was very generously donated to Scouts for the yacht by Southern Ropes and we fitted them only 2 days before the start of the race.