And we’ve made it the 2,300 miles to Sydney.

It was with huge and mixed emotion that we passed through The Heads and into Sydney harbour in the early hours of yesterday morning. Delighted that we’d made it in one-ish piece (our sails and Vin may beg to differ) and yet hugely disappointed with fourth place. It’s funny because if you’d offered me 4th place 13 days ago I would have bitten your hand off. 13 days is a long time at sea and we’ve been teased and tormented on every one of those days.

What a race! We had everything thrown at us and more. The expected and the very unexpected. The weather was relentless. Seeing the competition up close and personal was motivating. You can also see my office on a relatively calm day…

For me the greatest challenge going into the race was taking on the responsibility of the wildest (and most dangerous) seat in the house, bow 1.  Bizarrely for an ultra competitive person I leave this race not thinking about position, or disappointment but with a sense of huge pride in myself. And that’s a bit of an alien emotion. Little old me did it! I suffered the waves, the wind, the fear, the bruises and have come away smiling. I have learnt far more from that than crossing the line in a better or worse position. Something I never thought I’d say.

I also have enormous pride in Janine and Tim. They came to the bow team of port watch as new leggers, new sailors and certainly without ocean racing under their belt. We had no choice but to form a coherent and effective team and that’s exactly what we did for the duration. Yes we made mistakes but we were also awesome! Nicholas completed the team and I/we couldn’t have done this without him even though at our watch brief he said he wanted to spend as little time on the bow as possible. Amazing.

A few things have caused me much amusement. When I put them on paper I realise that perhaps the sleep deprivation  is playing a big part in that. Others that caused much frustration.

Bruises. You’ll have to excuse the crude photo but you’ll have some sense for why there is a preference to work quickly in the pulpit. Each of of those is a wave that I remember well.

Shouting. I got down to the pub late yesterday as I had the usual saga of detangling the mop. Kyro bounced over to say that there was only one occasion where the others had said I’d lost it. I personally think that’s pretty good going but clearly it caused much amusement over a couple of beers. The moment when they realised that I’m not all sweetness. Amazed it took them so long. A little fearful because that moment was caught on camera and is likely to be aired as part of the Clipper TV series around the world.

The christmas decorations. I think it was the 5th December when port watch took a funny turn. It was the day we found out that Greg had armed the boat with tinsel and a Santa hat. One of the key lessons I’ve been taught is never to go anywhere on the boat without my leatherman and electrical tape. The tinsel put that to good use and Greg and I scrambled about tarting up the boat as the watch choir sung carols horrendously. Still, the tinsel outlasted any sail in 50kts albeit the backstays now have rust on them and the helm pockets have turned purple. Sadly the advent calendar didn’t fair so well but I’m not being defeatist. I simply have to manhandle several pieces of soggy card and foil wrapped chocolates or eat the lot today.

Then there was the moment I had to talk myself out of combustion. Day 2, it’s REALLY wet and I reach for my dry suit. I couldn’t believe it. Someone must have used my dry suit to break their fall and had pulled the blunt corner of a hanger through my rubber neck seal. With the dry suit rendered useless for the trip I had to suffer and being the person most likely to need to use their dry suit in anger it was beyond frustrating. The person never owned up, apologised or tried to make a mends. Not even when Gavin and I were near hypothermic. That said Kat was lovely with her offer of a loan. Unfortunately for me Kat has the gift of height.

Then there’s the people thing. In previous legs Odeon had funnelled my frustrations. With his departure others came to the fore. Starfish this time sent me into all sorts of wild head spirals. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is when you don’t see eye to eye in a confined space and where there’s no brick wall to bang your head against. Starfish remains on the race and so I will have to find a coping mechanism. Sometimes that’s a sharing of frustrations (valid or otherwise) with Vin. Sadly Vin snapped her finger pulling down a sail a few days ago so I will have to find an alternative rock as she’s unable to participate in her Sydney Hobart dream. I am willing for her to have a quick and seamless recovery and I will selfishly miss her enormously.

And I’ve just heard Odeon is back. We won’t be on the same watch so my hope is that we can at least see eye to eye for the last two races I’m doing. To be fair I have to take my hat off to him because he did congratulate me on my bow efforts yesterday when he really needn’t have done. Maybe a fresh start for both of us? I will do my best.

Today ended with the skipper one to one debrief. A recognition of the watch imbalance, the effort I applied, the learning curve I’ve been on and requested that I help the cockpit to help the bow. With better preparation the hope is to cut down the amount of time we lay as wave prey on the foredeck.

Anyway, I’m off to buy an iPhone charger. Mine has corroded. I shall also pick up a hard drive so that I can share with you some of the impressive footage we have of ocean racing.

Next stop Hobart…

There is little more disappointment than fixating on an arrival window that evaporates due to poor wind.  We still have 100 miles to go and the wind is not being helpful.  We’re now looking at Sunday.  Morale is spiralling as is finger pointing.  The boat is turning into an unpleasent place to be.  I am quietly content knowing that I have done everything possible.  I have to wait several minutes to be able to use my hands when I wake because they are so swollen and tired.  There are some many other examples of fatigue on me and those who have worked hard.

xxx

You probably remember from the end of the last two legs that exhaustion,
physical fatigue come and smack you in the face with about two days to go.
You probably also remember that some of our hairiest or most damaging moments have been when we’ve been trying to push hard at the end of a race.  De ja vue.

Today, in an effort to catch up with Garmin, ‘we’ decided that we’d push code 2 to its limits and getting flying whilst code 3 was still in the operating theatre.  We went for the hoist and it almost instanaeously exploded.  We will now have the costly (points) expense of having to buy a new kite.  Yes mum, this is much worse damage than you witnessed in Cape Town.

This now means that unless Garmin have come up against similar challenges they will be pulling away and so will our podium place. Gutting.

That said, we are doing all we can and with the rolling waves and strong winds we’re probably making a steady 15 knots with plenty of roller coaster style surfing.  The satisfaction of just finishing our hardest leg will be immense.

After our physically most demanding watch in a while (they’ve all been pretty bad) we’re all struggling.  Even our watch leader was on the bow to try to lessen the load.  Lovely.

The list of necessities is growing.  R&R, champagne, massage, blow dry,
Christmas carols, a fluffy towel, good company, white beach, non-boat related exercise, face cleanser, moisturiser for crocodiles and SLEEP.

It would probably be tomorrow night back home that I’d throw my annual
Christmas party,  Happy Christmas all. Right now I’m really missing it/you all/the Christmas tree and Michael Buble.

Lots of love.  240 miles to Sydney and we’re counting every one.

xxx

Well, of all the ways I ways expecting today to turn out it wasn’t quite like
this!

As we rose to the deck for our afternoon watch the race had hotted up a little further with Garmin pushing and pushing from behind.  Knowing that we were soon to be tackling the Bass straight I asked if we should prepare the smaller yankee, particularly as our watch is lacking muscle.  It was seen as an overly conservative suggestion given we had been praying for wind all morning.  Fair enough.  We’re racing after all.  It was in fact champagne sailing conditions and for the first time my pastey white legs were out on show as were my new found biceps.

Then, almost out of nowhere with less that 40 miles to the scoring gate the wind came out to play. From nothing we then had 25 knots.  Then 35 knots…The yankee change then became a whole lot more critical and, of course, tougher.  The other watch were called for help.

Gav and I wrestled along with the rest of the bow team to tame the yankee 1. It took everything we had.  Gav was exceptionally cold because he too was ill dressed.  The sail was appropriately dealt with leaving way for the yankee 3. If we thought dropping the sail was a Herculean effort then we were about to be put in our place.

I don’t think I have ever been on the bow when it has been so wet.  One of
those situations when you can only laugh.  That’s exactly what we did.  Each hank yielded a cheer.  Each life jacket being inflated got a louder cheer. Each bruise (every wave) got a bigger still cheer.

The exciting thing, Rich has it all on camera.

Gav and I huddled and cuddled in the saloon under a spare sleeping bag wearing kind donations of dry clothing and eating our weight in sweets. I’m on stand-by for tonight’s watch and have the responsibility of fresh hourly coffee.

Best dash, kettle boiling and the crew have just finished an evolution.

Back to thinking Sydney on 12th.  That’s TOMORROW!!!! xxxx

This is soooooooooo INTENSE.  This is the first leg of the race that has for
its entirety actually felt like a race!!

Yesterday evening when we went up on deck for watch we had the pleasure of seeing both Garmin and GB. The latter being up close and personal as we stormed past them and waved with our spinnaker up (just before we had to drop it and fell back!).  We have since been in a sailboat sandwich and with the scoring gate and finish tantalisingly close the pressure is on.  This is a race NOT just receiving lat/long coordinates of the competition every six hours (we don’t have the race viewer you see).  With LMAX ahead we know that one of us will miss out on the highly coveted scoring gate points and the even more sought after podium place.  COME ON MISSSI.  THIS is our chance.

Believe it or not, today was my first spinnaker hoist as bow 1 (the start
doesn’t count because Gav and I did it together) and a refreshing change from endless racing headsail changes and storm sail hoists and reefs.  It went brilliantly well and I am chuffed as punch with the bow team.  Kyro would have even given me an ‘A’.

I have also bailed about 2 tonnes of water out of the bilges in the sail
locker which involved lugging many of the 10 mobile sails around.  Hard work and deserved of my three breakfasts (bacon sarnie, weetabix and cornflakes and coco pops, a special appearance for this leg).

We had thought that we may be in Sydney in 2 days but with this wind hole (yes, hard to believe after recent days) it may be late 13th or perhaps early 14th.

Everyone is making the most of being on the relative flat and level.

I’m so fricking excited I’m going to explode.  Christmas !!!!!  RACE!!!!
SYDNEY!!!! I haven’t worked this hard physically in a long time.  Caught a
glimpse of my biceps yesterday…The very fact I spotted them is telling.

A character that I’m struggling with but that’s soemthing for land once I
have a codename.

Lots of love.  Well done on your assignments mum xxxx

I think one 24 hour period makes for tough times on the boat, two becomes a chore and three, well that’s just taking the piss!  It has been a brutal few days with the strongest weather (when you take into account the sea state and the fact we’re going upwind) we’ve had on the race so far.  If you remember out of Cape Town we had a storm for a few hours that my brother mentioned had uprooted trees?  This is the same but days not hours.  When I was unhanking the storm jib in the early hours I was amused to see that one of the hanks had bent almost 90 degrees! Anyway, enough about that.  Unlike Cape Town, there has been no fear just perseverance, strength and where possible enjoyment.  As we are the furthest south we have been (and are likely to go) in the race it is cold too which makes for long night watches.  Thankfully Christmas carols have helped pass the time and we may make use of the cameraman onboard to come up with our own twelve days of Christmas (a Greg Miller on the helm, 2 watch leaders, 3 maids are milking [the reefing pennants], 4 grinders grinding, 5 seal skin socks, 6 bowmen bobbing, 7 ladies lunching, 8 round the worlders, 9 leggers leaping and so on…)!

Today is ‘mother’ again for me.  The watch leaders asked if I would stay on
deck and skip the shift but my muscles are grateful of the rest, my clothes
the opportunity to dry (haha), me the opportunity to sleep.  I can
understand why though as today is likely to mark the first use of the
spinnaker this leg as the wind has started coming around and that will be
tough for a crew with little kite experience.  In fact, while on this subject
I think that it will be hard to crawl back from 4th now.  We have dropped
south of the rhum line and the wind has already allowed the first three to
raise their kites meaning that they’ll not only be pulling away but we’ll
have greater distance to make up.  The race isn’t over yet and we’re not
going to hand it to them so watch this space!!

Exciting that we may pass Tasmania as soon as tomorrow.  It will be an
imaginary waypoint as we are too far off the coastline to see it. After that
is north and onto Sydney.  I can’t tell you how excited I am about that
arrival given I have always dreamt of sailing in that harbour since seeing
the start of the Sydney-Hobart in 2001 with my brother.  The recent weather has meant that it may take longer than initially guestimated to get there so maybe another 5 days from now.  Doesn’t sound long when the last leg was 26 and conditions should improve from tomorrow.

Interesting that the more time I spend on here the more normal it becomes. Despite being dunked a foot or two under water on the bow multiple times my hair is giving me little grief.  My body is also coping better as I have been supplementing my diet with protein bars.  I was alarmed to see when I took my 4 layers off down to the skin (first time in daylight since Albany) that I have developed the start of a man-like vein protruding from my arm.  WTF.  Hands are looking worse than ever.  You know the pink bit that attaches the nail to the finger?  Mine is receding at a rate of knots so I may have mini nails for the rest of my life…  I laugh about it now! Salt blisters, swelling etc is there as a matter of course.

Richard and I are trying for the Delia award with our efforts today.
Home made poppy seed rolls for lunch and the chocolate brownie has just come out of the oven.  I hope any visitors to my home on land don’t get any ideas!

Anyway, best go.  As the wind has now dropped it is time to maximise life at a less severe angle.

Love to all.  xxx

I think last time I typed an email I was talking of champagne sailing, big
smiles and all things being rosy.  Two of those are still the case but if
you had a glass of champagne it would have spilt long ago.  The wind is up
(45kts) with gusts above and the sea state is wild (not in comparison to the
last leg but plenty given we are beating into wind.)

We’ve had to put the storm sails up (the only evolution of our 6 hr
watch) which involved a rather soggy and exhilarating trip to the bow.
Instead of shying away I was up there wrestling with the rest of them.
Good fun.

We have LMAX just next to us in full view and are marking their moves.
Makes for some interesting ‘hold on tight’ calls in the accomodation area
(sounds grand) as you rush to hoist bunks and try to stay safe.

I also had a stint helming today where I had to be strapped and wedged into place so that I didn’t go flying.  Mother nature is a powerful thing and
turns out she’ll always pick on the dry person coming up through the hatch.

Anyway, with a thousand miles behind us and just over that to go the early
guesstimate is arrivval late on the 12th December.  Sydney.  WOW.

Love to all.  xxxx

Finally settling into life on the bow.  The nightmares seem to have stopped and the smiling in full flow.  Today’s 6 hour watch was action packed.  First and foremost I dusted off my ‘now that’s what I call Christmas’ album, Greg donned his Santa’s hat and we started decorating the deck with tinsel.  The wind picked up gradually and is, I’m guessing, now a steady 40 knots.  That meant that port watch took to the bow for a headsail change and then put in a couple of reefs (busy!!).  We’ll brush over the yankee 1 flake because I’m not sure we’ll want our name anywhere near it!!  Kyro and Marc would have been proud of these evolutions and I was dead chuffed.  Hopefully we’ll have some good
camera footage of them too.  There were a few moments -few -when I was out on the pulpit with waves breaking over me that it felt like I was only clinging on by my toes but in reality it is just as safe as anywhere else as you have the sails penning you in.  I also had a stint on the helm that I was proud of too.  Its a blast out here!

Amused to see that our tinsel can withstand stronger winds than our yankee one!

Brilliant to see that first, second and third all have the same mileage to
destination of 1350 and we are in that leading pack!!!  Loving this!

Not loving trying to brace in the heads at an incredibly aggressive angle.  If
only the toilets were gimbled.  I won’t go into detail.

To celebrate such a positive day I have clean clothes on and I eaten my last
caramel koala.

Good work on the bottle work J&G. xxx

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

Too much to say in such a short period of time so will have to keep it
brief I’m afraid.

I approached this leg with much trepidation and it turns out rightly so.
That said, there have been many incredible distractions that I am enjoying
being back at sea.

In no particular order…

The send off from Albany was exceptional.  Albany itself is a little place
with welcoming and generous locals.  We left the marina to much fanfare and land support from complete strangers who took pride in wishing us on our way.  That was special.  As the parade of sail kicked off with 12 boats
aligned, Dad popped by for a visit barrel rolling and looping his way up
and down the precession line.  Stunning!   If that wasn’t enough he hopped into his other plane with Karen and circled above as 12 boats jostled for position on the start line and headed around and then out of the bay for Sydney.

Mission Performance stuck with its recent record and took the lead from the off.  There is something so intense and magical about race starts and this time even more so as I gain and I lead the bow team. I felt pretty proud of myself when I noted an incorrectly tied sheet and a faulty trip line before the kite hoist.  I had Kyro’s words whirring in my mind as I set out leaving him on terra firma.  Thats really where my pride on the bow stops!

Aside from mother duty on the first day, watches have been relatively calm (apart from 1) with somewhere between one and three evolutions.  Usually they have happened in quick succession and this afternoon we were definitely ready for our gnocci lunch.  It is great to see Janine and Tim
embracing life on the bow, now I have to deliver for them imparting my
knowledge and creating a successful, slick team.  We’re not there yet!

Last night we were wrestling with the yankee at watch change and it took all of us to try to stop it going overboard.  Not a great end to an
otherwise successful (slow) sail change.

I don’t think I have introduced you to Rich yet.  He is joining mission
Performance for this leg armed with multiple cameras and microphones.  He is tasked with creating a multi-part documentary series following the crews through this epic adventure.  He has been on GB, Garmin and Ichorcoal so far and now its our turn.  Unfortunately I am one of his victims with regular pauses for interviews and filming.  Oh how wonderful it will be when the world sees my soon-to-be-busy eyebrows and unbrushed teeth, not to mention the birds nest on the back of the head.

Given vanity unexpectedly featured quite highly in the last leg it is
probably worth giving you an update on my hair strategy for this leg.  I
had a blow dry in Albany and decided not to wash my hair again before race start.  Risky coming into the leg with 5 day old hair.  The theory being
that the hair dresser gets it far silkier / smoother than I ever can which
may make for less matting.  I have also adopted a 4 plait ‘medusa’ set up.
It seems to be working well.  All those that see me on television will
question my mental health.

Anyway, best dash back to watch.  Soon to start the ocean crawl.  Making
good speed at the moment but high pressure ahead suggests it may not last.

Also no nightmares yet…

Here’s to being in first place and day 4 on my chocolate advent calender!

Love xx