Leg 4: 25th July

Position at 2100 local time, 25th July 2009, 43.36N, 50.11W

After 48 hours of being hard on the wind there has been an obvious affect on the entire crew. We are all very tired. When the boat is at 30 degrees all tasks are exhausting and it is extremely hard to sleep and carry out even the most basic requirement in life. But despite this crew moral has not fallen. Humour is at a high and although we have not heard the guitars from Johnny and Paul for a while practical jokes are beginning to crop up.

Matt O'Connell managed to graffiti Johnny Ho while he was snoozing and to Johnny's dismay when he awoke he had been tagged "he's mine, love Matthew" in permanent red marker. Another great moment in the day and a small exchange that we have decided to be our quote of the day came from when mother watch was pumping out the forepeak bilges. Paul asks "can you get me a screw driver Steve?" Steve replies "what type of screw driver?" Paul "the normal one!" we are yet to establish what type of screwdriver is normal and I can see a great debate arising.

Steve finds his way into the blog once again as we all realize that a profession in plumbing is probably not the best path for him. We have struggled with only one head (toilet) for a few days now and a queue is a common sight. So armed with a silicon gun we sent him forward to try and reseal the port head so that it can be used without fear of flooding. Sadly Steve returned with sealant everywhere apart from the intended hole. But after many hours of labour white watche leader Mark managed to fix the leak so that now there is only a minor dribble.

We are all growing tired of soup. Frequent cries from Rupert of "I hate soup!" inspired Johnny Ho to create three mouth watering loafs of bread that would not look out of place in a bakery. It truly did change they way we thought about soup, for lunch anyway.

Now onto some actual sailing, we are currently 11 miles from our waypoint and after that we are free to set any course that we like. Although the way point has been mandatory to ensure we do not make friends with any icebergs it has been a frustrating 5 days. Forced to Cover 750 miles instead of the intended 500 due to an ever changing wind it has taken us far longer that expected. We must tack one more time in order to pass south of the way point and then we are free to do as we please. During happy hour we "hove to" for five minutes and our intended course was explained to us and an estimated time frame. (Although I will not divulge that information as I would hate to be responsible for cursing our winning streak.) We are currently 1st in our class for the third day running. This is definitely a great boost for the crew and something to give real drive during those extra tough sail changes.

Finally I want to leave you with the news that Matt O'Connell managed to encounter our biggest and "best" wave so far. Managing to soak the members of mother watch in the galley preparing dinner and even bring water into the navigation area and onto his own laptop. We wait with baited breath to see if we meet any others that can top this one or the wave that came in through the air vent and rudely awoke the mate during his afternoon nap.

Steve Jackson White watch
Matt O'Connell Red watch