Posts from the Nilaya racing team

Friday 30th November 2012, 4th day in the Race, app. halfway in distance, 1480 Nm to go, a solid second
place, with Leopard way out in front, Sojana and Med Spirit at a comfortable distance behind. Hope we
can keep this position until the finish.

Yesterday was a beautiful day of sailing, wind speeds of 18-24kts and an average boat speed of 15kts,
with peaks as high as 23. Yesterday, after 3 days of sailing we finally changed course for the first
time and we `jibed` to starboard tack. This meant, moving all the sails to the other side above deck
and below deck, Jodie had to reorganize her galley and in the cabins, the `lee-cloth` needed to be
attached on the opposite side of the beds. This prevents falling out of your bunk while you`re asleep.
The Jibe was perfect, new heading, 260 degrees, straight line to the finish!
The rest of the afternoon-watch, we spend trimming the sails, recording some action movies, enjoying
Jodie`s treat, taking a shower. At 20h00 off-watch, standby at 23h00, next watch at 00h00 until 04h00.
Bouwe and his team just left their watch for 10 minutes. We, Jens, Johnny, Dirk, Alexis, Paul, Peter,
Rogier en myself were busy fulfilling our duties on deck. All of a sudden: BANG! Next thing you see is
the spinnaker going down in the water - f@#$! `All hence on deck !` - Yes, midnight again, everybody
out of his bunk and start pulling and crawling and sweating to get the spinnaker out of the water and
back on board this with the boat still doing 12kts we managed to get the foot of the sail inboard
and soon the rest was inside the railing report: no damage to the sail, it seemed that the shackle on
the halyard was snapped in 2 pieces!!, with the halyard and the `snuffer` still up in the mast. We than
used the sniffer line to drop the halyard and not more than 35 min after it hit the water, the
spinnaker was up again! All crew off-watch back to their bunks and we remained with our watch on deck.

00h45: without keeping his eyes off the sail whilst trimming it, Peter announced: It`s my birthday
today, I just turned 41! Well, Peter your 41st year certainly `Started with a BANG``Happy Birthday
Peter!` - later followed Jodie`s chocolate birthday cake with candles and singing!
17h35: the tack line from the spinnaker snapped, lucky we had it on the safety line
17h55: the sky turns black wind speed down to 4kts boat speed down to 3kts! Hoist the jib and drop
the spinnaker!18h30: waiting for the squall 19h20: wind speed back to 16-17kts, boat speed 10-12kts

Never a dull moment during this crossing! That`s all for now, folks!

Jan, from the Nilaya team