We have been down the coast of the US and reached California and the Mexican peninsula Bahia California (the largest peninsula in the world). At the time we still had good winds and were surfing down some waves. 

Leg 7 (Seattle to Panama) Day 13 – Friday 11th May

It has been a while. Pretty lazy this leg at writing. 

Yesterday (and this morning) we had some sea life: boobies, common bottlenose dolphins, seals and more birds. 

Over night we had our Code 1 flying again after it was heavily repaired twice. The first time it had split along the foot, the luff and through the middle. After the first repair we flew it for about 1,5h and decided to take it down, but during the preparation of the Code 2 it came down itself with a bang … we just managed to recover everything and Mary, Maeve and Simona did a great job in sowing everything together again in just about 1 day. 

This time it has been holding and we are now super-careful. We don’t fly it over 15kts of true wind. 

In the meantime we had a chance to check what the race rules say to our issue with regards to our Code 3 – which is missing is head, after the halyard broke and it trailed behind the boat for a while. 

A new Code 3 would cost us 8 points – more when a new one could ever bring us in the remaining races. However we are required to have a ‘full’ Code 3 on board – so we need to repair it, even if we never fly it again. 

More about the sailing, we have had good wind all along the US and Mexican coast. Now we are just passed the California peninsula (Bahia California) and we running out of wind. Yesterday an attempt gybe went wrong, we had to recover the lazy sheet from under the boat. Anna got a little bath at the stern to free it from the rudder. After that the decision was made to not gybe and stay further outside. A mistake in hindsight. The other boats behind us went further in and kept their speed and caught up with us. 

We are now flying our windseeker in 2-4kts of wind and going not even all the time in the right direction. Also the boats in front slowed down. So it looks like a restart just 1000 miles from the finish. 

On the weather in general, it is now getting hotter. The water is now over 20 degrees and during the day the air easily heats up to high 20s. The nights were still a bit chilly, but I believe this will pass soon as well. With that my tan is also slowly coming back.