Here I am, sitting with my iPad in my hand, thinking about how to deal with the growing wind. Is it going to hold or not? No need to ask the question out loud, no one is going to answer anyway. Is it a good time or should I wait a little longer? All our senses are sharper than usual, and so is our attention, when the wind is so unstable. You need to be sure of what you’re doing and not start heavy manœuvres for nothing. If you do, the punishment comes immediately: precious miles lost and no energy left in your body.
I answer the interview of the Vendée Globe live Web TV show while waiting for the wind direction to finally stop changing so I can make a decision. Somewhere across the planet, Pierre-Louis is asking me to describe what I’m seeing. But it’s pitch dark out there! So it will be a sound postcard instead, with me describing the noises on board, or the racket, I should say. The water is growling under the hull, the outrigger is slashing through the water, the hull is slamming into waves that eventually crash on the deck and become a waterfall ending up in the cockpit… What a noisy postcard!
That’s what a regular day in the South is like. And the cold water seems to hit the boat much harder than the water we’re used to in Europe. At one point, I put on my noise-reduction headset but even then I could still hear these various sounds…
There are still huge gusts out there, so I guess it still not a good time for a sails change.
Dom
