There is an interesting dilemma aboard.  When should one change their
clothes?

Given this race is relatively brief at 4 days it is throwing up all sorts
of approaches as to how often you change your clothes.  Greg is every 1000
miles, Mike, Janine and Nicholas are sticking it out with the one set and I
am taking a rather luxurious approach of clean knickers every 5 days  Pause there for one sec.  Who would have ever thought that I would use luxurious, woolly pants and 5 days in one sentence.  I’ve changed!!

Anyway,  there seems to be quite an interesting dynamic to this leg give
the strengths and weaknesses of each watch.  In Port Watch we are very
light on muscle not helped by the fact that we have Sally (broken
shoulder), Mary (an older lady who finds moving around a challenge) and a
mix in the desire to be competitive.  We also have 6 women to Starboard’s
1.  We are leaning a little on Starboard watch to help with some of the
tougher evolutions, yankee one hoist/drop being two of them.

Evolutions were coming thick and fast at the start with probably a couple
of reefing evolutions and a sail change per watch but more recently we have had very few with focus being on trimming and boat life.

We’re in relatively light winds at the moment and are anticipating that
will continue until Mon/Tuesday next week as we approach Tasmania.  We
broke the 800 miles to Tas earlier and will hopefully be there on Wednesday.

Still at the front of the pack in second place with our strategy to stick close to the rhum line (shortest distance) versus seeking stronger winds. As it happens the weather files have been inaccurate and we have done pretty well with the wind too.  We still have a long way to go but we’re
enjoying life at the top.

Best go.  Just emptied the bilges and now for sail trim.  The glamour of
life at sea!

xxx