S.Y ‘EH01’ Global Yacht Racing

Blog– 20th October 8.30am

The last 24hrs has been a real mixture as the winds remain erratic to say the least, as we came up towards the top of the Messina Straits we suddenly saw an increase in wind speed to around 12-15 knots which was great, lifted our spirits with the A2 up and we were flying along.  Lots of short gybing up the straits, a narrow miss with a very large ferry, a visit from the Italian coast guard (just checking us out!!), a race with a windsurfer, and a great view of the kite surfing on the north west tip of the straits.

Coming out of the straits the wind increases more and we are pushing the limit of the kite, 18 knots we are seeing and we are storming along at a good 10-11knots, then sadly we have a gybe issue and the kite needs to come down briefly to be sorted out, we try a re-launch of the A2 but there is a small tear so straight back down again to make repairs, but still making good speed under the J2 so everyone is happy.

As we near Stromboli the wind dies down again and we are back to managing the never ending light wind situation back under the A1, and with that the concerns turning to the potential food situation.  Jokes on who we would eat first are being made, but we all know that tonight is the last boil in the bag meal we have!!  Todays job, counting slices of bread and wraps and working out what can go in it, we may be moving to a post-war rationing system, porridge is looking top of the list, one slice of cheese per person, moving to Nutella wraps from tomorrow….

We are also somewhat disappointed by Stromboli, and thinking of making a complaint to the Italian tourist board and requesting our money back…. where’s the eruptions?, where’s the lava?… this is definitely not what we saw in the brochure when we signed up!  Although the shooting stars, and amazing sunrise , amazing lightening shows (which we were thankfully sailing away from!) and a bit of a rainbow….. may just about make up for it, just a little bit.

Cruising back in the right direction at about 6 knots after yet another wind shift taking us away from our target, we’ve taken the A1 down and back on the old faithful J2, I’m off now to start the crew rationing… lets hope our joke of eating Tristan first doesn’t become reality, but at least we have our sense of humour still !

S.Y ‘EH01’

Global Yacht Racing

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