Leg 6 - Race 9

Now that I am in the final phase of this race I thought that a reminder of what I look like might be appropriate. I am not sure if I was worried by the trim of the sails or what I was supposed to cook for dinner that night.



This was the start of the race from Santa Cruz. Just a reminder that we did not participate in Race 8 from Hawaii to Santa Cruz as we were still having our new mast and rigging installed.



Race 9 was mostly a downwind race and with lighter winds we had spinnakers up much of the way.



Here I am sitting behind the grinder waiting for Mandy to issue an instruction to trim the spinnaker. Whilst on watch we would normally rotate the tasks as staring up at the trim of the spinnaker for too long would invariably result in a stiff neck.



Unfortunately with over 1,000 miles still to go the winds died and we had to motor/sail to Panama City in order to get through the Canal within our scheduled tranfer times. We finished the race in 10th position (i.e. last) but in my opinion had some of the best downwind sailing since leaving Liverpool. Western Australia finished 9th and we sailed together often stopping for a mid-ocean swim.



The sunsets and sunrises were spectacular during this race - oh for a glass of red wine to celebrate the sunsets.



We saw many species of birds on this race and some even had the temerity to hitch a ride. This was a Brown Booby that took a fancy to our pulpit.