Race 8 is over

Visit Finland has crossed the finish line in 5th position in foggy Yellow Sea. We are waiting outside Qingdao overnight and entering the marina in the morning.

Yet another race is over, unfortunately we did not do very well in this race either. We’ll have to wait until morning our entry to Qingdao marina, then everybody collects their kits, checks into their hotels before starting a spree of deep clean and boat maintenance. Some reflection will be no doubt given to our finish position, as this time we did not reach podium place either. It seems as if the team has lost the racing focus, which can be very frustrating for driven crew members like myself.

Race 8 was supposed to be the most challenging of them all condition-wise in Clipper Race series, however the weather did not quite deliver what was hyped in advance. Snow torrents, sleet, gruelling conditions of all sorts were promised, but we spent most of the race bouncing gently upwind, then reaching until the finish line. Despite having 2-3 days of rough weather east of Taiwan, I -and most of the round the world crew members- agree that conditions around south and east of New Zealand were much more difficult during leg 4.

Looking back the past race, it felt really quick and short one being only 20 days! The most exciting event for me during the whole race was a mast climb yesterday in a breeze of 20 knots to fix jammed tracing line between first and second spreaders. This jam prevented us from reefing the main sail. Unjamming the line was easy, however the journey back to deck level got more complicated when a spinnaker halyard (used as secondary safety line) was blown to the aft of the mast by gusts. I could not be lowered as the spinnaker halyard was behind spreaders, so my options were either to disconnect the line from my climbing harness (certainly not my favourite option) or commence single-handed untangling operation whilst swinging up the mast. I chose the latter option, and fortunately after couple of tries the halyard popped back to forward of the mast and I was lowered back to the deck level without further drama.

Maintenance spree ahead

We have a lot of maintenance tasks to do in preparation for the North Pacific crossing. Our watermaker motor gave up the ghost today, needing intensive care from the maintenance team. Inverter, padeye, split kite, watermaker etc. cannot wait for later. The yacht needs to be ship shape and ready to go by Sunday 4th of March. Hopefully I’ll have time to enjoy local delicacies, I’m really looking forward to having some dim sum. A warm bath will be also very much appreciated, and a good lay in as you might guess!

Motoring towards Qingdao, 35 58′.324N 120 53′.930E

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