Dear UCT to Rio supporters,
Those following the tracker very closely would have noticed that the team left a very strange track last night. This wasn’t from too much partying after hearing we are leading class 2. Matt reported “Last night we saw a strange squall which was doing 360’s around us for about 3 hours and gusts from 10 knots to 25 knots. Hence the strange track, best we could do.”
Today’s Message from the team:
“Day 10 already! I’m writing this update from:
23 16.640′ South
012 59.676′ West
Pretty much the very middle of the Atlantic Ocean!
Today has been a great, sunny day of sailing, as you can tell by the picture of Murray grinding on the kite as we blast towards Rio! After a long night of tricky light winds, the sunrise brought a steady 18 knots of breeze to lift our spirits. With news of our rating and our current position overall in the race, we are more determined and in fact purely excited to race harder and push further.
I thought I would give a bit more insight into how our watch system works and how/when/if we ever sleep. Tim and myself, Mikhayla, are on a three hours on, three hours off rotation system. Matt, Murray and Alex, who are our main helms, are on a two on, two on standby and two off rotation system. This means at no point will anyone sleep for longer than three hours. When we aren’t on watch, our time off is spent doing the inevitable boat work, sponging water out of the bilges, cooking/eating, catching up with news from home, reading or writing.
If we’ve done all that and still have time to spare, then we collapse into one of the bunks and drift off with the gentle rock of the boat and the sound of water against the hull. At least in the calm conditions that is.
If you aren’t thrown out of your bunk due to an unexpected wave or woken up at some point for a sail change or maneuver, then you are woken 10 minutes before your watch starts, wipe the sleep from your eyes and make your way up onto deck.
The last few nights have been magically bright with a big almost full moon turning the water silver and making our night watches much easier. We’ve eaten well, (bar the tinned meat balls dinner, highly not recommended) and snack on energy bars, nuts and dried fruit during the day. Homemade rusks (thanks mum and Mrs. Forrest), crunchies (thanks Bev) and ontbytkoek (thanks Marianne) give us a true feeling of comfort and surprisingly we are still enjoying fresh oranges and apples (thanks Patty).
We absolutely love the letters from people, news from home and all the questions people might have for us! Please keep them coming!
I’ve just realized you can definitely tell this was written by me. There is no talk of bowel movements and it’s really long.
Sending lots of love to everyone home and a huuuuge thank you for the support up until now!
Miks”
