The joy of the sleeping bag
Hamish Hooper blogs from on board CAMPER
Its been tough but necessary day onboard CAMPER today, we have lost some hard miles to the trailing boats but it was deemed to be a necessary evil to ease back on the throttle a bit and push for a full team effort in repairing a collection of niggly little things that after another 6 days of hard Southern Ocean sailing could quite easily snowball into far bigger problems at a vital time of the race.
Daryl had the sewing machine out to repair some rope tail bags from on deck, which had been unceremoniously ripped off by the powerful water yesterday. He was happy though; just for the fact he wasn’t sewing a sail together again.
Daryl is very handy with the sewing machine, I am sure he could make a lovely frock for his lovely wife anytime.
Nico had the sicaflex out, which I was elated to find out was to fasten the hatch shut to stop the constant flow of water into the boat.
The novelty of bailing the bilge wore off pretty quickly in the middle of the night as the boat came to an abrupt halt and sent me flying into the very water I was trying to get rid of.
I no longer find it therapeutic to bail water.
Trae was securing the life rafts again which always take such a hammering from the relentless water over the deck, hopefully they wont be going anywhere in a hurry.
Now we are back up to full steam ahead, having lost around 15 miles or so to the trailing boats. It could have been worse, but hopefully this means there will be no more downtime for us until we reach Brazil and our mighty shore crew can take over.
Being on deck down here is truly captivating. To be surrounded by such monumental waves and wind is magnificent.
You can definitely get a sense of why the Southern Ocean is such a mythical and captivating place to the relative few people who have been here.
Its immense power and rugged and raw beauty is inspiring, but also very sobering.
You get the feeling that it is a privilege to be here, but also a privilege to leave it.
The temperature is still dropping, I am doing my best to hold out on adding more layers of clothes too quickly, it’s always a comforting thought to know you have something else you can put on.
There is one thing on this leg that you can just see is treasured the most by everyone- the sleeping bags. Sheepskin lined bundles of warm dry bliss, which you can tell is the one and only focus on the guys mind as they come below after their long 4 hours on deck.
I think about how amazing getting into my sleeping bag is from the moment I have to get out of it.
I think I will take it home with me after this race.
GOLDEN QUOTE: “The traditional conditions of Whitbread’s and Volvo’s gone by have returned. Classic Southern Ocean conditions make for exciting but stressful times on deck. Battling huge confused seas and squalls of 50 knots, is more than a gentle reminder that we must always respect Mother Nature.” STU BANNATYNE
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