emmabamford

Leg 4 Race 6 – Day18

 19th February

The sea state is now slightly calmer, the night clearer but also colder. We're now down in 7th position which is hard to take when we have been working the boat so hard. We gambled on coming further east in order to get slightly stronger winds and a better run in towards the finish line – however the lighter winds that we hoped the rest of the fleet would get don't appear to have hit them. Certainly not significantly enough to make a difference. Although it looks like we've chosen a longer route we've had to tack far fewer times so the distance travelled is probably comparable. We just didn't get the wind shifts as predicted. Australia are 42 miles ahead and although we are still taking miles out of the other boats it's not the gains we were hoping for.

 Night watch started well although it was obvious early on that a repeat performance of a night head sail change was on the cards. This time though I arranged with the opposite watch that we would wake a couple of them for extra effort as we were short of hands. Just before 10pm it was time to tackle exactly the same scenario we'd had the night before. With two additional hands and a much calmer sea it was a very different story. The hour and half battle of the previous night was reduced to an extremely efficient 11 minutes 22 seconds – I timed it! My self confidence and self respect was restored and the rest of the watch passed smoothly and with a smile!

emmabamford

By Della Parsons

 Leg 4 Race 6, Day 17

 18th February

Hull & Humber

 Last night was a nightmare. It started off OK on our three-on and three-off hourly rotations but two hours before the end of the watch the wind picked up and we did the “sail change from hell!” I spotted the trend in wind increase too late so by the time we were getting the yankee 3 up on deck the winds were already gusting up to the mid 30s, the night was pitch black and absolutely freezing. It took 4 of us 15 minutes to get the new sail down the length of the deck onto the bow and secured down. Half way through this process we had to stop and Tom and I peeled off to put in the second reef while the others secured the sail. By the time I staggered back up to the bow Jack was sitting there, his life-jacket having activated due to the amount of water thrashing over the deck, looking pretty pale. It turns out while holding on to stop himself being thrown around he had dislocated his shoulder. He was sure it had gone back in again (he had previously dislocated it two or three times so knew the details and the pain only too well) so my priority was to help him back down the boat and get him below decks.

emmabamford

By Della Parsons

 Leg 4 Race 6 Day 16

 
17th February

Hull & Humber

I have a new best friend as of last night. He's called Henri (Henri Lloyd) and he's my brand new, worn-for-the-first-time, mid-layer salopettes! That, along with my thickest base layer, fleece and mid-layer jacket meant that I was toasty warm all night on night-watch. Although in fairness I couldn't compare to the previous night as we did split watches last night. One thing I can crow about – and that's that I finished a watch without being soaked through to my pants for the first time in five days! Now there's something to celebrate!!!

 It's now deemed too cold to sit on deck at night for the full six hours

emmabamford

By Della Parsons

Leg 4 Race 6 - Day 15

 16th February

Hull & Humber

 I'm now sleeping in my sleeping bag. In the space of four days I've gone from sleeping in nothing (well a t-shirt for decency's sake) to getting into my muslin sleeping bag liner, to lying on top of my sleeping bag and now I'm finally in it with the zip done up! We were told there would be a sharp change in temperature and conditions during this race – and they weren't wrong! It's staggering you can have such a dramatic change in climate without sitting on a plane for six or seven hours!

I added an extra layer on night watch last night but was still a bit cold by the end of the watch. The winds that were temporarily strong seem to have decided they quite like hanging out here, as we are still dealing with up to 38 knots of apparent wind.

emmabamford

By Della Parsons

 
Leg 4 Race 6, Day 14

15th February

Hull & Humber

 I slept well last night - for a good two hours - and was dreaming about sailing: I'd been sailing along nicely when suddenly the wind picked up and stormy weather started bouncing the boat around. It seems this was an omen, as (back in real life ) just before we were due to go on watch, things started getting lively!

We were straight up on deck putting in the first reef and then taking down the yankee 2 and hanking on the yankee 3. Back on the bow the waves were crashing over us once more.

emmabamford

Leg 4 Race 6 - Day 13

14th February

Hull & Humber

 1.30am came round far too quickly. Especially as sleep was being unfashionably late and still hadn't bothered to show until well after midnight! I started off grumpy and was even grumpier within 10 minutes as someone had taken my oilie jacket from the wet locker and after rifling through the entire space for 15 minutes, I had to borrow a spare just to get myself on deck – late! Grrrrrrr!

emmabamford

Leg 4 Race 6 – Day 12

13th February

Hull & Humber

 As predicted sleep is something that evaded me last night. The boat slammed against the waves and I slammed against my bunk pretty well all night. The only relief was when it felt like we were tacking three times during the night. Each time I felt the boat level off and slow right down as we headed into the wind. Each time I adjusted my bunk angle ready to counter the heel on the opposite side and each time I ended up putting my bunk back to where I started. I assumed that the watch on deck must be doing some sail changes or shaking reef out but apparently that wasn't the case! There was talk of “doughnuts” the next morning so I'm guessing the helming had been a little too challenging at times.

emmabamford

By Della Parsons

Leg 4 - Race 6, Day 11

12th February

Hull & Humber

 Bang, bang, Bang! Was the noise that I woke up to at 1.30 this morning. Swiftly followed by a quick blast of 'Happy Birthday to You' sung by Charlie and Mike to an amused if slightly bleary-eyed Jeremy (or Victor, as I call him, after Victor Meldrew). The bangs had been a series of party poppers fired off over his bunk as a special 'Birthday treat'!

Our old faithful birthday banners had been strung up and fresh balloons blown up for the occasion but once we'd all wished Jezzer Many Happy Returns (“you old codger”) it was back to the matter in hand – checking out the scheds before heading onto deck.

emmabamford

Leg 4 Race 6 Day 10

11th February

Hull & Humber 11.45am Dudin Mean Time (DMT)

I arrived on deck at 1.45am this morning to be welcomed by the most beautiful starry sky. The night sky when viewed from the middle of the ocean is really the most spectacular sight. I'm by no means any expert on the stars but it's hard to miss the Milky Way, Mars is very bright at the moment but search as I might I haven't found a Fruit and Nut up there in the heavens yet! After identifying the Plough, Orion and the Southern Cross (which I've grown to love but won't be with us for much longer), I then started to make up my own. As of last night the newest star constellations are 'Kangaroo' – just to the east of the Southern Cross at the moment, 'Tortoise' – above Kangaroo, then (with slightly more imagination required) 'Poodle chasing Cat'. My favourite of the night however (and I'm sure this will catch on with others too) is 'Shopping Trolley' – and no it's not the Plough under a different name! It was hard to tell if it was a Tesco trolley or Sainsbury's but it was on a sideways slant so I believe could have come from either store. I'm trying to persuade Piers to add these to his worryingly comprehensive, self-written spreadsheet of “Stars Sights”, which details what you can expect to see in the night sky, and at which angle, from anywhere in the world and for any night of the year (he really needs to get out more). I suspect he thinks I'm not taking the subject seriously enough!

 At the

emmabamford

Leg 4 Race 6 Day 9

10th February

Hull & Humber

 Yesterday evening was watch change-over. The whole crew are split into four groups and two watches (Port and Starboard watch). There are two groups per watch and every four days two of the groups changes watch, so each group has 8 days per watch but will be with two other groups on that watch within that time (I hope you're following this!). I've been on port watch since race start and yesterday at 8pm, moved to starboard watch. This meant instead of starting night watch at 8pm, I went to bed – hoorah! It also meant that I was being rudely awoken at 1.30 this morning for a 6 hour night watch starting at 2am (not so good!). The other not so good thing about waking at that time was that it was very hot, which meant no breeze coming through the open hatches, which in turn meant that we had lost speed.