Race 2 La Rochelle to Salvador

I am sitting in the comforts of the Hotel Redfish in their lounge area. Coming in 1st was a huge advantage enabling some of us to get the choice hotels. Whilst some of the crew decided to stay on board I opted for a little luxury. The hotel only has 8 bedrooms and is in the historic old part of the city about a 20 minute walk from the marina. Today some of us are heading to one of the islands for a mini-break. We have completed all major repairs and maintenance so our skipper is happy for us to take some time off brfore the start of race 3. Last night we had the awards ceremony and all crew got a small pennant and then there was a trophy plus a very large pennant to display on the boat.

The race from La Rochelle lived up to all my expectations:

Lousy weather (mostly in the Bay of Biscay)
Fantastic downwind sailing with the spinnaker
Better food that was expected (we have 2 delightful ladies on board who did a great job provisioning)
Becalcalmed in the doldrums (not too long for us)
Avoiding major disasters (2 boats have broken their spinnaker poles in half and many have severely damaged spinnaker sails)
A few crew disagreements (nothing major and always resolved - there are 17 of us living in a confined space so this is not unexpected)
I would classify us as a Happy Boat
I have lost weight (rapidly being regained here in Salvador)

I hope you are all following along on the Clipper web-site- their race tracker is excellent.

Here are some photos:

Prior to the start in Liverpool:



At the start in La Rochelle - I now have no hair and no moustache - it was a do-it-yourself job and took me ages - does anyone remember Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest - that was me half way through.



Sometimes it was miserable on deck:



Another tough day at the office.....



Spiking the spinnaker sheet prior to a drop (not me)...



Winners in Salvador:

Message From Ian Deas

The surprising thing is that we are doing 10kts and we are in the dreaded doldrums. Our skipper planned to enter the doldrums where it was predicted to be at its narrowest based off the weather information received last Friday and so far it is working to plan.
It is now over 2 weeks since we left La Rochelle and we have covered nearly 3,000 miles and have about 1,300 to go. If you have been following the race progress on the Clipper website you will notice that we stayed west of the Canary Islands whereas 8 of the boats deceided to go east and were becalmed in the lee of the huge volcanoes. That has given us a great advantage to breakawy from them. Unforfortunately one other boat, Nova Scotia had the same idea and are currently 10 miles behind.
Last night as we were approaching some thunderstorms we decided to take down the spinnaker and go with the largest headsail and staysail. Just after midnight we were hit by a squall with winds of 45 kts and very heavy rain. With the full sail we had up we were way overpowered but in the dark with the boat at a precarious angle there was not much we could do. We headed into wind and after about 15 very uncomfortable minutes the squall past.
Once through the doldrums we will be in the south atlantic trade winds and hope to arrive in Salvador on Sunday.

From the mid-atlantic
Ian

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