© Sam Davies
Hello everyboody!
Finally I have got my fingers back onto my keyboard, on board ROXY, about 400 miles West of the Azores.
We left Boston last Sunday, so we've been out here for nearly a week. I have spent nearly all of the time that I'm not on watch sleeping, and resting reading my book and now I have a bit more energy and feel quite normal!
On board Roxy with me are Xavier David, Guillame Helfer and Corentin Chenais. It is great to have my team mates on board with me. We have had a lot of fun and they are learning how Roxy behaves out here in the ocean.
We had a slow start with not much wind (great for my R&R!) which was a bit frustrating. Then a few days ago the wind started to build and I saw that we were in for a bit of a blow as a depression passed us quite close. As you can see in the photo of Xavier, he was not taking any risks and prepared early for the challenge!!!
The strong wind passed last night; we saw 58 knots maximum and Roxy's new record speed is 29.3knots. It was quite stressful as I wanted to "send it" fast for as long as possible with the comfort of knowing that the guys were there with me, so we kept the staysail up with three reefs and we screamed along, surfing some mountainous seas. After the wind settled steadily above 50 knots I decided it was safer to roll away the staysail and we rocketed along with a handkerchief of sail up until dawn.
We lost our "IOR perch" (a man-overboard safety buoy) in a HUGE wave, but other than that Roxy loved the strong wind , and my confidence is getting stronger through every new experience. I was really glad to have the guys with me last night for that very reason and I feel more and more ready to attack the Southern Ocean alone.
We are not the only ones out here - I am keeping in close e-mail touch with Dee on Aviva, who is just behind us, and Marc Guillermot on Safran, just in front. Dee, like me, is sailing with some of her team. We're sharing a fair amount of info in order to learn more from each other, like routing choices, sail choices etc. (also how we are managing to deal with being "invaded" by a crew of smelly boys!!!) it makes the trip just that bit more interesting!
So, next up is a little change to calmer conditions as we get into the High Pressure around the Azores. That will enable the continuation of the "Roxy mini basketball challenge" and give us "kids" a chance to get past the current title holder Xavier! We can also dry out, tidy up a bit as after last night, the inside of Roxy is a bit "higgledy piggledy!"
More news soon...... Sam x
