Nico and Dalts, with Will Oxley in the background. Image copyright Hamish Hooper/CAMPER.
by Hamish Hooper
I’m getting in to this racing stuff.
It has been a knife edge day: We have been getting to the edge of where we think we might be safe to beat the trimaran Vodafone for line honors. We are still not 100% clear but with the CAMPER crew going through the watch system, maintaining good boat speed, and eating up the miles like a mid afternoon snack, we are in a strong position.
As we edge north its slowly getting hotter, like being In a slow cooker on a light simmer being bought to the boil. Speaking of boiling point, I wasn’t far from it this morning when I went down below to start a brew of cottage pie for lunch, only to discover the sink blocked because someone (I have my suspicions) had been sending left over food down it steadily to form a nice rotten blockage. Lucky for me the Spanish Superhero Chuny was on hand to help me fix the problem. Both of us crammed under an already crammed galley, sweating profusely and uttering various cusses. It’s quite funny listening to a Spanish man speaking in Kiwi slang that he has pick up from his children. My language was a little stronger that Chuny’s. We get it fixed eventually. I have very quickly become protective of the sink. The wooden veneer cup holder next to it still looks immaculate.
As I write this, my confidence in getting to Fiji first has just taken a hit. The wind just died... we are doing five knots. This yacht racing sure is a funny old game, never count the chickens before they hatch.
The tension builds again... Oh wait a minute, we are doing 16 knots again and it’s hosing down with rain.
It will be a tense night for sure...
My predicament of the evening; do I go outside in the rain or stay below where it is hot and stinks of really putrid feet. I don’t have much of a choice really, it’s time to put on dinner...
I’ll ponder another kind of predicament over beef teriyaki preparation.
CAMPER ETNZ
