Telefonica Blue Leg Five Day 4

Not much happening.  We are still reaching, and right now have a big spinnaker up. The sky is very grey, it is time that the sun comes through, we haven't seen much of that in China.

It wasn't easy, to roll straight away in a hard reaching conditions, but we did ok, in other words it could have been way worse, and the losses could have been bigger.

We have been sailing in less breeze than the others boats ahead of us, but kept the distance, even gaining a bit on Green Dragon. Last night, when we where under the Japanese south coast, and particularly under the island Yaku-shima, we all of a sudden parked up for two hours. The wind went from 26 knots to a mere three knots, unbelievable the flapping of the sails as we were still rolling in the big breaking waves, but luckily no breakages of gear or personnel.

Super-frustrating as the other boats had sailed right through this patch of water. But, then without warning, the breeze picked up again to 18 knots and we were off again. Reaching is a bit boring for most of us, but it means good mileage in the right direction.

Bouwe Bekking - Skipper