VOR Exclusive
Five days on the way, all boats are still pretty close. Our Chinese friends leading the pack for the last couple of days. We got them back to 1.9 mile last night, but then the bungy sprang the wrong way for us, now over 7 miles behind them. It seems they like to sail on port tack, as all the gains they are making are done on that board. But said that, we extended against the Arabs. Sailing as lot in the cross over the masthead 0 and the A3 gennaker, and with a small chop accompanying us not an easy task for trimmers and helmsman. Lots of wording like : “lets change , it is a hold, ok change, hold!”. At least we have learned not to wake everybody up until the sail goes into the sky. We are trying to pick the sail that gives us the best average, so that we don’t get into a changing frenzy.
We got some new food onboard and actually these two brands can be the ticket for any SA reader who is going offshore. Boiling water is always a crime especially when it bumpy on a boats who’s kitchen is not designed for cooking anyway. For shorter offshore races, it means as well sending a guy downstairs, losing valuable kilos of the rail. The two brands you must try if you can live without a hot meal are Adventure Food, the crunchy muesli and Ambronite. The muesli still needs a soak as it is freezedried, but the Ambronite is the real ticket in my opinion, as it is just adding water, shake and drink. Bonus: it is only having natural ingredients, very much like a fresh vegetable juice.
So why do I like the above? It takes me always a couple of days before I can force myself to eat warm freezedried, I have eaten it too much in my life and simply lost all appetite for it over the years. But by
eating/drinking the cold meals at least I get the calories I need. Maybe on day ten, I will have have my old time favorite, the USA Mountain House lasagne, which is impossible to buy in Europe due to regulations, but we got our hands on it:-)
3800 miles to go, it feels like this leg is going to take forever. But not complaining: we are moving, no water on deck, it is warm, hearing great stories, some of them again, but with different twist. Maybe an idea for our crazy OBR Stefan to make a movie about one of these stories, he likes that stuff.
Bouwe Bekking
TeamBrunel
