Leg 2 Salvador to Durban

It is Tuesday afternoon (November 20) and I am sitting in the comfort of my hotel room that overlooks Durban harbour. We completed Leg 2 at 3am on Saturday and after 2 breakfasts of fried eggs bacon etc, many beers and too many rum and cokes I finally felt that I had arrived. This photo is taken of the bow when we were close hauled.



We finished 7th in this race which although disappointing we just felt relieved to get here having survived a Force 10 gale just off the Transkei coast and the only damage was a severely ripped mainsail that is currently being repaired. The final week was very frustrating with either little or no winds then a full force gale. We were about 40 nautical miles from Durban and it took us over 24 hours to cover that distance. This is a shot taken from the mast (not by me).



I thought over the next few blogs I will post some photos taken from down below. I sleep in the top bunk at the back of the boat on the Port side (left). The advantages are that it has more privacy and has better ventilation. The disadvantage is that it can be very noisy as my head is just below the mainsheet winch and when that is being used I will always be woken.



These are the cabins from the main sleeping area where there are 14 bunks. Crew members use sarongs to create some privacy and note the sails that are stored here. When sails are being tranfered to or from the deck it gets both noisy and can be very wet.



One of my creew roles is to repair the sails. This photo is taken with Claire and I repairing some minor rips in one of the headsails. The cloth is too thick in these sails to use the sewing machine so all repairs are done by hand with a needle and very thick thread. A few days after this photo was taken we ripped about 2 feet of the spinnaker and that we repaired down below with the sewing machine. Apart from the mainsail which required profession help we have been very fortunate with little damage to our sails.



On Sunday we leave Durban and should take just over 3 weeks to get to Freemantle where we will have over 2 weeks to rest. I am especially looking forward to the stopover as that will be the first time I will see my family since the beginning of September. I miss them terribly and not seeing them is probably the hardest part of this race for me.