If I call this one ‘the’ difficult leg it virtually guarantees we’ll have another one, right? Oh well. Also my waterproof camera is suffering from water ingress and is not reading the card, so no photos I’m afraid. Clipper will have plenty from this leg on their Facebook page at some point.

It started well (in that we came out of the initial match racing course off the departure port in last place, as is tradition), promptly to be greeted by the Agulhas current pushing us the wrong way first in a wind hole, and then with wind on the nose for about 8 days. All of this made for very slow going for the entire fleet – making us all rather late into Fremantle and serving up a short stopover here.

Unfortunately things got more complex, with one of our crew Erik suffering from some severe health problems necessitating an air-drop of medical supplies (by the Australian Air Force) followed by a medevac (by the Australian Navy) a few days later. He is now recovering well in hospital here in Fremantle. 

I also managed to do some damage to my chest muscles after an action packed morning on the bow (the pointy end) in crashing waves, as well as one morning waking up with an awful back pain between the shoulders, possibly due to all the helming in heavy seas. So it’s time to see a physio here at some point. I was also viciously attacked by the inner forestay (again) in the same bow incident, so I seem to be collecting minor injuries.

Off again from Fremantle on 2nd December heading for Sydney, this time a passage of only (in theory) two weeks. We’ll see about that…