Nick Moloney diary

The intrepid Aussies is now into the South Atlantic on board the maxi-cat Orange

It's a little strange to recap the past few days. In order to maintain sanity when undertaking such a long journey you develop a mindset that always has you looking forward and not in your wake. What is in the past is history and what lies ahead are hurdles and significant landmarks that we need to negotiate well in order to be successful.

Three days ago we were 300miles north of the Equator with an average speed a little over 20kts. Then we hit the wall. The Doldrums were quite typical, very hot, squally etc. We conducted the usual under the water and on deck inspections when we were going slow enough. Our minds and focus clicked into a new mode as we all begun preparing ourselves for a long tour in the South.

I'm not sure which is best....to know what we are in for down there or to have absolutely no idea. We have a good mix of both on board and talk of what to expect, how we should conduct manoeuvres etc is frequent.

Once in the Doldrums we began the slow crawl towards latitude 0. When you are racing a fleet in these waters you know that everyone is generally slowing but for us the clock keeps ticking and seconds are sill seconds, minutes still minutes. It's frustrating and concerning because you never know how long the calm will actually last... hours even days??

I managed to sleep through my 6th Equator crossing. It has been so hot below deck and nearly impossible to sleep during daylight hours so when you are tired enough, you take it. I think we were all a little knocked around by the quick decent into the tropics after a cold kick-off and struggled a little in the beginning.

We are now over 18 degrees South and still in shorts and tees, bathing in the bow spray or with buckets several times a day. The days still pack some strong squalls but the general gradient keeps boat speed around the 20s. At around midnight the air cools a little and the clouds disappear leaving beautiful clear, starry nights. This is definitely the greatest place in the world for night sailing. Shorts, bare feet, no shirt to protect you from the sun, no hat, no sun glasses....awesome!

We've had a few small setbacks along the way - broken furler swivel, broken padeyes and now the port hull dunny has gone down. Team Mike Golding gave us some Ecover, bio-degradable bags before the start and they along with a bucket have the port hull back up to speed. My two main competitors in the Open 60 class are still haunting me, we just finished an amazing feast of spinach with SILL ham.......fortunately we bought all our on board tools from Castorama.

We've had the usual light hearted antics to separate the routine. Gilles [Chiorri] dressed up as Neptune and gave us all a gift from our shore team at the Equator. Some of the lads are shaving the growth on their faces into stupid shapes...Philip Peche is winning that competition by a mile and tonight I ran across the tramp stood by Herve [Jan] on the helm, was familiarising myself with the set up and sail trim when I noticed a pair of fake breasts starring back at me from the Martingale ( the striker arrangement off the front beam that stops the compression beam from lifting under headstay load.) It took me a short while to focus, the boys were discreetly watching for my reaction and broke into hysterics.

The French are quite happy with my collection of French swear words but I have a growing concern that I have missed something in my translation of the trip. We are so far west right now and still steering a course slightly west of south that I fear I may have accidentally signed up for an E-W tour.....woops!

We are trying to negotiate a bubble of high pressure that has established itself slightly right of our desired route forcing us to head west to avoid days of upwind conditions. It's doing my head in a little as we will surely lose a portion of the lead that we have established over Sport Elec's record. But we are heading south and tomorrow I start research on the Ice situation in the Southern Ocean.

We are all very much into a routine of life at sea. The mood is great. The most common phrase used onboard is in English... 'so far,so good'. Our vessel continually reminds us that its in command and will not take abuse. We have a long, long way to go......don't worry mum, Bruno knows the way.

Nick

Nick Moloney is a member of Ellen MacArthur`s Offshore Challenges Sailing Team. Click here to see Nick's website... or here to see the Offshore Challenges website.