Day 12 : Through the Doldrums, next stop the Equator

Hello everyone,

Well, the Doldrums were very kind to us this year! Our little group of boats (Temenos, Pindar, Roxy and Safran) managed to slip through without really slowing down. Now we are careening along upwind in the SE trade winds, just north of the Equator.

The reason that we had no “doldrums” was because I wanted a light patch of wind to re-do a lashing at the top of my mainsail. This meant dropping the sail, working at radar-height in my climbing harness, and then re-hoisting the sail.

Unfortunately I ended up doing it in 16 knots of wind, which was a little challenging, but totally do-able. The good thing was that the re-hoist was easier as I went to one reef. With just the solent up, we actually didn’t slow down too much either.

So, now it is an upwind ride for a while, where I struggle to keep up with these new powerful boats. I will be trying as hard as I can to keep Roxy at 110% all the time!

Tomorrow I will cross the Equator, so I shall make my offering to Neptune (he gets GH Mumm champagne and chocolate from me) to thank him for looking after us so far and to negotiate good winds for the rest of the trip!

Sam x”

At 1100 UK time, Sam Davies aboard Roxy was in 13th position, 222 miles from race leader Loick Peyron aboard Gitana Eighty
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