Leg 5 - Race 7 - Qingdao to Hawaii

It is now almost 3 weeks since we arrived in Hawaii and those of you following the race on the Clipper website will know that it was without a mast. About 700 miles from Hawaii, in the early evening the mast lost one of its supporting stays and went into the water. Friends have asked me "where were you when this happened" - well I was cooking dinner. Anyway we had to cut it away and dump it into the ocean and then motor for about a week until we reached Hawaii.

The downside of being dismasted is that 8 Clipper boats left yesterday on the race to Santa Cruz whilst us and Western Australia are waiting for or new masts to be fitted. The upside is that I went home to California for the first time in over 6 months and got time to spend with my family. I even managed a days skiing in Kirkwood - something I had not expected to do when setting off from Liverpool last September.

Back to the race. Although we received a wonderful welcome in Qingdao I was happy to leave the the cold behind. The first 2 photos are us at the start and a view of the harbor where the Olympic sailing events will take place this summer.






The race started in very light winds and we were still within view of the city when the winds died during the night. To prevent us drifting back towards Qingdao we dropped the anchor and then awoke to this sight in the morning. To say I was cold is a gross understatement - I was FREEZING. During the morning the winds picked up and we managed to sail on, knowing that we were heading south towards warmer weather.



The winds then really picked up and we made some of our best 24 hour runs since we left Liverpool. We had rough seas and strong winds all the way until we reached the coast of Japan. During those few days we even managed to accidentally gybe and broke our spinnaker pole and rip a winch out of its support. Although very scary nobody was injured and within a short while were racing again.



A real bonus for me and something I had not expected to see again since leaving the southern ocean was the sightings of albatrosses. I identified 2 of the 3 northern albatrosses and may be forgiven for not spotting the third as it is almost extinct with only about 200 remaining.



This photo shows some of the downwind sailing conditions we faced. Although we sometimes had very strong winds (over 60 knots) the conditions are far more comfortable compared to when we were sailing into the wind on our way to Qingdao.



This is our watch with Claire our Watch Leader, Peter, myself at the helm, Lucy and Tore.