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It's
Sunday, and the sun's just set. We have a long standing tradition
on TGS Jersey (well, it's happened on 2 consecutive Sundays, that's
tradition enough for me) of flying the battle flag on Sundays, so
I've just lowered it from the inner forestay where it's been flying
out against the background of the heavyweight kite all sday.
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| Simon Rowell |
It's
been a glorious 24 hours, we seem to have popped out of the Doldrums
to the south but nearly a degree to the west of the fleet and have
had a screaming force 7 spinnaker reach - some interesting moments
on the helm, and some great surfs down the long Pacific swells that
are just starting to kick in. Wind's dropped a bit now, still not
low enough for the larger medium weight kite, but low enough to
allow the helm to look almost relaxed!
New
faces
The last few days have involved quite a bit of deckwork, with several
new faces wearing the climbing harness - Valerie is the mastman
on Howard's watch and she has the most comprehensive set of bruises
on board right now.
Benny (boat guru, by the way - we all follow the teachings of the
small brown man) is reserve mastman on Frank's watch when Frank
is on mother duties, and had 2 masthead trips plus a swing out to
change sheets on the kite. And today Jane took a trip out to inspect
the sheet on the kite. These are always interesting jobs when the
boat's doing 11 knots.
A
toast!
Hopefully tomorrow (20th January), we will pass the 123rd meridian
of longitude. This will mean that our faithful vessel will have
raced, and
looked after us all, for a third of the way round the world from
the startline in Liverpool - that deserves a toast if ever anything
did. So, if
I could ask all of you back home, the next time you have a glass
of your favourite tipple, please raise it to the yacht Jersey Clipper
- she serves
us well.
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