Sophie Luther Round Gotland diary
Sunday July 4th 2004, Author: James Boyd, Location: Scandinavia
The Gant Gotland Runt got underway earlier today. From on board Mikke Lundt's Volvo Ocean 60
Avant, Pindar-sponsored crew Sophie Luther writes:
We had a really good start to the race. Once again we were match racing JMS in the prestart, and en route to the Almagrundet lighthouse we were with the trimarans which was a fantastic sight to see.
This morning in Sandhamn, everyone was pretty nervous, but we’ve all got into the mindset of sailing the VO60s quite quickly. Avant is pretty similar to Pindar [Emma Richards' Open 60s] in some ways, with the water ballast [ Pindar has a canting keel]. And you do stack sails when you’re sailing Open 60s too.
At present we’ve got all four ballast tanks full and we’re all sitting on the side of the boat, hiking out hard on top of the stack of sails.
Everyone is complaining about the food already. We’ve just had cheese and ham roll with one slice of cheese and one slice of ham so everyone is moaning. But we’re blasting through the waves, doing 9.5 knots in 18 knots of breeze on a tight reach under full main and J2 headsail.
We’re really happy as we’re in front of JMS and that’s where we plan to stay. Mikke has been steering for most of time. Emil (Wiberg) did the start and he’s steering again now to give Mikke a rest. We’re not going to sleep at all until early tomorrow morning and the plan is to stay on deck and keep the weight up on the rail.
I’m the first person on the rail, a privelege of being one of the youngest on board and it's freezing and pretty wet too. Fortunately I’m wearing thermals and my snug jacket and a pair of bottoms at the moment (1530 local time) but I’m going to have to get my mid layer on soon.
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