The Race Is On

Hi Gail, sorry for the lack of report yesterday -- it was a busy one! Peeled spinnakers to the new 3/4 oz and the sun came out for late afternoon for the first time. Galley boys did a beautiful roast beef with roast veggies, spuds and red wine. During dinner suddenly "SAIL HO!!!" -- Checkered Past closing in from the North at a constant angle of 315 (virtually a collision course). With some unstable air around (vertically developed cumulus cells) we elected to peel back to the 1.5 oz Pineapple in case of squalls later in the evening. While this was going on Checkered Past crossed about 1/4 mile in front of us after about 1130 miles of racing! Game on . . we gybed onto port board both to protect the left hand side of the course which we think is favoured for now and to be on port in case of squalls at night. Lots of black clouds around moving in the veered flow but no real action out of them; we sailed all night in sight of Checkered Past, and this morning they're still there on our starboard beam 5 or 6 miles away. IT'S A RACE! Cirrus and Kokomo are now about 40 or so miles astern but still very much in the game.Gotta go -- daily gribs are in and time for some tactical head scratching. More later -- you'll hear from George and J McC about how stoked they were with the 1/2 way goodies.Cheers,Simon

Followup from John McC.
Simon pretty well filled you in on the uninvited guest crashing our half-way celebration. You should have seen us! In the best tradition of Jack Aubery, Master and Commander, when the enemy (our competition) was first sighted on the horizon, the binoculars came out and the intruder was accurately identified. Dinner dishes and leftovers were stowed in a flash. And, as Simon said, the 3/4 OZ spinnaker was peeled to the Pineapple Sails 1.5 oz kite, followed by a quick gybe. Had this been back in the Aubery days, we would most assuredly have fired a shot with our bow chaser cannon as he crossed our bow. But we are, of course, more civilized now.