We Hit the wall

Position: 39,14.15S , 59,24.9E

Speed: 7 knots, Course: 32 deg.

We hit the wall. We have hit light air and are watching the others sail up to us. We are still being tormented by the old cold front that we fell off the back of about 48 hours ago. This is the same front that ABN AMRO ONE managed to stay on due to their 30 mile lead on us at the time. That 30 miles lead has since turned into 300 miles as they rode the front.

We had southerly winds during the day today and had nice distance runs only changing sails twice and keeping the boat moving fast. We stretched our lead on movistar and ABN AMRO TWO. Now, as the tree of us approach the remnants of the disintegrating cold front, we have slowed first. The routing software has been telling us for two days that we are going to be able to penetrate the front and get the northwesterlies on the other side.

However, none of these predictions has panned out so far.

We just have to keep trying to sail north-northeast and work our way to the north-westerlies. My guess is that this won’t happen and we will just sit here until some new wind fills.

This would not be so bad except that the new wind that is coming from behind. So this will pick up Movistar and bring them up to us and ABN AMRO TWO.

This will make it a three boat scramble for the points at the scoring gate when 12 hours ago we were feeling pretty comfortably in second place. As frustrating as it is, I suppose it could be worse.

There is a very confused sea out here from the southerly that we sailed in for the past 30 hours and the strong northwest winds that have been here for the past few days. This makes for tough sailing in only 5 knots of wind and of course it is now dark too.

Other than that life is pretty good out here. It has rained again most of the day as we are stuck in this front. The water temperature is quite warm a 18.6 so the air temperature is very mild. These ice waypoints that we have to honor are keeping us safe but it has changed this leg pretty significantly. This leg 2 used to be one of the defining legs of the Round the World race. We have been out here a week and haven’t gotten our gloves on yet.

I washed my hair today in a rain squall. That felt pretty nice. I used too much dish soap though so I will be dripping bubbles for a while. Beef stew is on the menu tonight. That is basically filet mingnon with hollandaise sauce. Then to wash it down, we will have a little desalinated Cabernet.

We just spotted a light in the mist ahead. It is either ABN AMRO TWO that has now passed us or a fishing boat or a real Pirate ship. Not sure yet. We will let you know.

END

Paul Cayard

Pirates of the Caribbean