Living at 45

Well the Panama canal was pretty special and amazing, but is already a
distant memory as we're 24 hours in to the race to Jamaica. With this being
our home port, we REALLY want to win this. So we're pushing on every level.
Dedicated helmsmen, and a 4 hour on/off watch system (as opposed to our
usual 4 hours at night and two 6 hours during the day).

I'm one of the helmsman, and also find myself on the bow often for headsail
changes. The last 24 hours have been a bit of a reawakening and have shown
us how we've been spoilt in the run down to Panama. Running for 12 days
down wind with a spinnaker is a hellufalot more pleasant than beating close
hauled. The boat is heeling up to 45 degrees (30 at a minimum) and bouncing
off the waves as we plow through to Jamaica. Which is making living on
board (getting in your bunk, trying to go to the toilet, or even writing
this email) *very* tricky.

The steady trade winds should give us a nice beam reach, but they are not.
Beating in to the wind is tough going in and of itself, but add to that a
raft of technical problems and things get even harder. Our generator, which
we run about 15 hours a day packed up. This means that we have to use the
engine (in neutral obviously) to charge our batteries. But since it's water
intake is on port side, we can only run the engine (at this heel) on our
starboard tack.

So although we'd like to tack when it's good for our strategy, we are
finding ourselves tacking when all computers start turning off (a sure sign
the batteries are too low). All fun and games.

Even typing this email is hard, so there might not be a lot over the next
couple of days. But the good news is that some early smart tactics have put
us in a favourable position. Now lets just hope the wind veers a bit to
give us a smoother ride!