The start in Airlie Beach was slightly different to our normal race starts. After the usual sail parade, we motor-sailed for about 24 hours to the east side of the Great Barrier Reef. This was because the Race Director had decided on not letting the twelve yachts race through a narrow gap in the reef and potentially putting the boats and crew in danger. Since no committee boat could accompany us in order to coordinate the actual start, the Le Mans start procedure was followed this time. Some of you might be familiar with this procedure in car racing, but on water its slightly different: All boats have to form a straight line (parallel to each other) and are only allowed to have the main sail hoisted. The head sails are hanked on, but not hoisted. First all crew have to be in the aft of the boat (behind the last coffee grinder) and as soon as the start signal sounds, the crew can make their way forward and hoists the head sails as fast as they can. The whole procedure is supervised by a lead skipper, who has decided on the sail plan and a heading for the boats prior to the race start. Only after 10 minutes into the race the boats are allowed to change their course or sail plan.
As you can image this was an extremely intense and exciting start, since all boats were so close together and the immediate performance of each team could be seen. Shortly after the race start the fleet split into to groups, as we had to avoid a small group of reefs and in the early hours of the next morning we just has three boats in sight. This always amazes me again by how fast the boats separate from each other and the fact that you will only see all of them together at the finish.
The next few days were quite enjoyable sailing with a good breeze and sun. However, this changed the further we got into the Solomon Sea. The winds eased off by quite a bit and the life below deck turned into a Sauna bath. Even if you were only lying in your bunk you would start to sweat and it even got worse when the mothers for the day started cooking or backing. Therefore, most of the life on board to place up on deck and it was not rare that people were trying to squeeze into the small areas of shade that the sails created. On one day the sea was so flat that we could convince our Skipper Max to allow us to go for a swim, as long as the boat would not go faster than a knot. We had a long rope from the back of the boat and a cargo net on the aft in order to climb back onto the boat. This was definitely a great refreshment to all of us.
As soon as we had left the Solomon Sea, which had challenged us with its heat and no wind, we made our way north-west towards the top of the Philippines. For this 1,000nm stretch the winds were extremely favourable, allowing the whole fleet to make extremely good progress. We even had the chance to celebrate our second equator crossing and Australia Day (since we have two Aussies on board). However, since our arrival date had to be amended several times to an earlier date, the Race Director decided to extend the race course by adding another 1,000nm (he placed several virtual marks in the South China Sea). As you can imagine this were devastating news for us, as we all had planned to be in port around the February 10th.
As we rounded the top of the Philippines the wind came for north-north-west, which allowed us to fly the spinnaker all the way down to two virtual race marks (roughly on the latitude of Ho Chi Minh City). On our way down we made our fastest boat speed of the whole race: 20.9knots. Fellow crew mate Cameron from Australia perfectly captured the moment in a short video. I have yet to convince him to post it on YouTube to be able to share it with you (currently on only on Facebook). It was a crazy ride with Cameron on the helm and me as helm buddy standing next to him. Here are some screenshots for you to get an idea:
Once again the fleet was making extremely good progress, but due to the strict Vietnamese visa regulations we were not allowed to arrive before the February 17th, meaning that the race course hat do be extended once again. The leg really was an emotional roller coaster with two course extensions fairly short before the finish line. In the end of the race we finished 9th overall and are happy with the result. The stopover in Danang was mainly used by all teams for maintenance and servicing jobs on the boats. Since we did not have too many repairs to do, I decided with a couple of team mates to discover Vietnam a bit more. We managed to go to Hoi An, the Ba Na Hills, crossed the Hai Van pass and all of that on motorbikes we rented for our stopover. All in all I can say that Danang was a great stopover.
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